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UNITED STATES OF AMERI 



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LONGMANS' ENGLISH CLASSICS 

EDITED BY 

GEORGE RICE CARPENTER, A.B., 

Professor of Rhetoric and English Composition in Columbia College. 

This series is designed for use in secondary schools in accordance 
with the system of study recommended and outlined by the National 
Committee of Ten, and in direct preparation for the uniform entrance 
requirements in English, now adopted by the principal American colleges 
and universities. 

Each volume contains full Notes, Introductions, Bibliographies, 
and other explanatory and illustrative matter. Crown 8vo, cloth. 

Books Prescribed for the iSgy Examinations, 

FOR READING. 

Shakspere's As You Like It. With an introduction by Barrett 
Wendell, A.B,, Assistant Professor of English in Harvard Univer- 
sity, and notes by WilliAiM Lyon Phelps, Ph.D., Instructor in 
English Literature in Yale University. 

Defoe's History of the Plague in London. Edited, with intro- 
duction and notes, by Professor G. R. Carpenter, of Columbia 
College. With Portrait of Defoe. 

Irving's Tales of a Traveller. With an introduction by Brander 
Matthews, Professor of Literature in Columbia College, and ex- 
planatory notes by the general editor of the series. With Portrait of 
Irving. 

George Eliot's Silas Marner. Edited, with introduction and notes, 
by Robert Herrick, A.B., Assistant Professor of Rhetoric in the 
University of Chicago. With Portrait of George Eliot. 

FOR STUDY. 

Shakspere's Merchant of Venice. Edited, with introduction and 
notes, by Francis B. Gummere, Ph.D., Professor of English in 
Haverford College. With Portrait of Shakspere. 

Burke's Speech on Conciliation with America. Edited, with 
introduction and notes, by Albert S. Cook, Ph.D., L.H.D., 
Professor of the English Language and Literature in Yale University. 
With Portrait of Burke. 

Scott's Marmion. Edited, with introduction and notes, by Robert 
MoRSS LoVETT, A.B., Assistant Professor of English in the 
University of Chicago. With Portrait of Sir Walter Scott. 

Macaulay's Life of Samuel Johnson. Edited, with introduction 
and notes, by the Rev. Huber Gray Buehler, of the Hotchkiss 
School, Lakeville, Conn. With Portrait of Johnson. 



LONGMANS' ENGLISH CLASSICS— Continued. 
Books Prescribed for the i8g8 Examinations. 

FOR READING. 

Milton's Paradise Lost. Books I. and II. Edited, with introduc- 
tion and notes, by Edward Everett Hale, Jr., Ph.D., Professor 
of Rhetoric and Logic in Union College. With Portrait of Milton. 

Pope's Homer's Iliad. Books I., VI., XXII. , and XXIV. Edited, 
with introduction and notes, by William H. Maxwell, A.M., 
Superintendent of Public Instruction, Brooklyn, N.Y., and Percival 
Chubb, of the Manual Training High School, Brooklyn. With 
Portrait of Pope. 

The Sir Roger de Coverley Papers, from "The Spectator." 
Edited, with introduction and notes, by D. O. S. Lowell, A.M., 
English Master in the Roxbury Latin School, Roxbury, Mass. With 
Portrait of Addison. 

Goldsmith's The Vicar of Wakefield. Edited, with introduction 
and notes, by Mary A. Jordan, A.M., Professor of Rhetoric and 
Old English in Smith College. With Portrait of Goldsmith. 

Cc leridge's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. Edited, with 
introduction and notes, by Herbert Bates, A.B., Instructor in 
English in the Universify of Nebraska. With Portrait of Coleridge. 

Southey's Life of Nelson. Edited, with introduction and notes, by 
Edwin L. Miller, A.M., of the Englewood High School, Illinois. 
With Portrait of Nelson. 

Carlyle's Essay on Burns. Edited, with introduction and notes,^ by 
Wilson Farrand, A.M., Associate Principal of the Newark Acad- 
emy, Newark, N. J. With Portrait of Burns. 

FOR STUDY. 

Shakspere's Macbeth. Edited, with introduction and notes, by 
John Matthews Manly, Ph.D., Professor of the English Language 
in Brown University. With Portrait of Shakspere. 

Burke's Speech on Conciliation with America. Edited, with 
introduction and notes, by Albert S. Cook, Ph.D., L.H.D., 
Professor of the English Language and Literature in Yale University. 
With Portrait of Burke. 

De Quincey's Flight of a Tartar Tribe. Edited, with introduc- 
tion and notes, by Charles Sears Baldwin, Ph.D., Instructor in 
Rhetoric in Yale University. With Portrait of De Quincey. 

Tennyson's The Princess. Edited, with introduction and notes, by 
George Edward Woodberry, A.B., Professor of Literature in 
Columbia College. With Portrait of Tennyson. 

*:(.* See list of the series at end of volume for books prescribed for 
iSgg and igoo. 



LONGMANS' ENGLISH CLASSICS 

EDITED BY 

GEORGE RICE CARPENTER, A.B. 

PROFESSOR OP RHETORIC AND ENGLISH COMPOSITION IN COLUMBIA COLLEGE 



THOMAS DE QUINCEY 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS 



LONGMANS' ENGLISH CLASSICS 

With full Notes, Introductions, Bibliographies, and other Explanatory and 
Illustrative Matter, Crown 8vo. Cloth. 



Shakspebe's Merchant of Venice. 
Edited by Francis B.Gummere, Ph.D., 
Professor of English in Haverford 
College. 

Shakspeee's As You Like It. With 
an Introduction by Barrett Wendell, 
A.B., Assistant Professor of English 
in Harvard University, and Notes by 
William Lyon Phelps, Ph.D., Instruc- 
tor in English Literature in Yale 
University. 

Shakspeee's A Midsummeb Night's 
Dream. Edited by George Pierce 
Baker, A. B., Assistant Professor of 
English in Harvard University. 

Shakspeee's Macbeth. Edited by 
John Matthews Manly, Ph.D., Pro- 
fessor of the English Language in 
Brown University. 

Milton's L'Allegro, II Penseeoso, 
CoMus, AND Ltcidas. Edited by 
William P. Trent, A.M., Professor of 
English in the University of the South. 

Milton's Paeadise Lost. Books I. 
AND II. Edited bv Edward Everett 
Hale, Jr., Ph.D., Professor of Rhetoric 
and Logic in Union College. 

Pope's Homee's Iliad. Books I., 
VI., XXII., AND XXIV. Edited by 
William H. Maxwell, A.M., Ph.D., 
Superintendent of Public Instruction, 
Brooklyn, N. Y„ and Percival Chubb, 
Instruct or in English, Manual Training 
High School, Brooklyn. 

Defoe's Histoby of the Plagite in 
London. Edited by Professor G. R. 
Carpenter, of Columbia College. 

The Sib Rogee de Coveelet Papebs, 
fiom "The Spectator." Edited by 
D. O. S. Lowell, A.M., of the Roxbury 
Latin School, Roxbury, Mass. 

Goldsmith's The Vicae of Wakefield. 
Edited by Mary A. Jordan, A.M., 
Professor of Rhetoric and Old English 
in Smith College. 

Bueke's Speech on Conciliation with 
America. Edited by Albert S. (Jook, 
Ph.D., L.H.D., Professor of the Eng- 
lish Language and Literature in Yale 
University. 



Scott's Woodstock. Edited bv Bliss 
Perry, A.M., Professor of Oratory 
and Esthetic Criticism in Princeton 

College. 

Scott's Maemion. Edited by Robert 
Morss Lovett, A.B., Assistant Pro- 
fessor of English in the University of 
Chicago. 

Macaulat's Essay on Milton. Edited 
by James Greenleaf Croswell. A.B., 
Head-master of the Brearley School, 
New York, formerly Assistant Pro- 
fessor of Greek in Harvard University. 

Macaulay's Life of Samuel Johnson. 
Edited by the Rev. Huber Grav 
Buehler, of the Hotchkiss School, 
Lakeville, Conn. 

Ieving's Tales of a Teavellee. With 
an Introduction by Brander Matthews, 
Professor of Literature in Columbia 
College, and Explanatory Notes by the 
general editor of the series. 

WeBSTEE'S FiEST BtTNKEB HiLL ObA- 

TiON, together with other Addresses 
relating to the Revolution. Edited by 
Fred Newton Scott, Ph.D., Junior 
Profe^^sor of Rhetoric in the University 
of Michigan. 

Coleeidge's The Rime of the Ancient 
Maeineb. Edited by Herbert Bates, 
A.B., formerly Instructor in English 
in the University of Nebraska. 

Southey's Life or Nelson. Edited by 
Edwin L. Miller, A.M., of the Engle- 
wood High School, Illinois. 

Cablyle's Essay on Buens. Edited 
by Wilson Farrand, A.M., Associate 
Principal of the Newark Academy, 
Newark, N. J. 

De Quincey's Flight of a Tabtab 
Teibe (Revolt of the Taetaes). 
Edited by Charles Sears Baldwin, 
Ph.D., Instructor in Rhetoric in Yale 
University. 

Tennyson's The Peincess. Edited by 
George Edward Woodberry, A. B., 
Professor of Literature in Columbia 
College. 

Geobge Eliot's Silas Mabnee. Edited 
by Robert Herrick, A.B., Assistant 
Professor of Rhetoric in the University 
of Chicago. 



Other Volumes are in Preparation. 




THOMAS UE (^UIXCEY 



Congmans' Q^nglisli (glassies 
DE QUINCEY'S 

REVOLT OF THE TARTARS 



EDITED 

WITH NOTES AND AN INTRODUCTION 



CMkLES SEARS BALDWIN, Ph.D. 

INSTRUCTOR IN RHETORIC IN YALE UNIVERSITY 




KEW YORK 
LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 

LONDON AND BOMBAY 

1896 



X 






(y 



Copyright, 1896 

BY 

LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 



All rights reserved 



/Z- lil'<(£> 



Pretis of J. J. Little & Co. 
Aster Place, New York 



PREFACE 

The ^'Revolt of the 'J'artars'' is essentially like '^ The 
English Mail Coach/' Both start from fact, both move 
in dreamland. In order to make this plain, De Quincey's 
choice and use of material are carefully displayed. To 
obtrude this historical matter would have been prejudicial 
to more strictly literary interest ; to omit it, prejudicial 
to any just estimate of the work and the author. The 
appendices, therefore, show, so far as was proper within 
the scope of this volume, the basis of those judgments in 
the introduction and the notes which do not accord with 
common fame. Erudition is sometimes proclaimed among 
De Quincey's merits. A careful examination of this piece, 
in its revelation of certain habits, impairs this claim. If 
many other pieces of De Quincey's now reckoned as his- 
torical were subjected to the same scrutiny, perhaps there 
would be less said of his erudition, and so of his versa- 
tility. 

But why should criticism of literature be concerned 
with erudition, or, for that matter, with versatility ? If 
a man does well his kind of writing, that is enough. The 
student of this volume is not asked to admire either a foot- 
note erudition or a versatility that consists in the jour- 
nalist's variety of topics. The critical apparatus seeks to 
concentrate his attention upon De Quincey's high imagi- 
nation and the range and finish of his expression. 

Mere information necessarily occupies a great deal of 
space when the subject is so far out of the common as the 
migration of the Torguts. But wherever the equipment 



vi PREFACE 

of the average school could be trusted, the student has 
been directed, not informed. In criticism, too, the editor 
has tried to direct and stimulate rather than to dogmatize. 
Where everything is supplied ready-made, even to con- 
venient labels of characterization, the appeal is only to 
memory. N"o student is less amenable to education than 
he who knows his English literature thoroughly at second 
hand. 

The text here printed is that of Hogg's collective edi- 
tion (Edinburgh, 1853-1860), which was prepared by the 
author. The text of the new Edinburgh collective edition 
(Adam and Charles Black), edited by Professor Masson, 
has been carefully collated and some of the emendations 
in punctuation adopted. The text of the original Black- 
wood article (1837) differs here and there in phrase, no- 
where in substance. All notes except De Quincey's are 
relegated to the end of the book. The arrangement of 
the critical apparatus being throughout such as to facili- 
tate questioning, the usual specimen examination papers 
seemed unnecessary. 

The editor returns thanks for assistance to Dr. Nelson 
Glenn McCrea of Columbia University, and to Mr. Fred- 
erick AVells AYilliams of Yale University; for the loan of 
Bergmann's book, to the library of Harvard University. 

C. S. B. 

Yale University, August, 1896. 



CONTENTS 

Introduction : 

PAGE 

I. Biograpliical Sketch of De Quincey .... ix 
II. The Revolt of the Tartars : 

A. The Kalmucks xxv 

B. The Revolt xxix 

C. De Quincey's Narrative (in General) . . . xxxi 

D. De Quincey's Narrative (in Detail) . . o xxxii 

Suggestions for Teachers xxxix 

Chronological Table xliii 

Revolt of the Tartars 1 

Notes 68 

Appendix A : 

Books bearing upon the Kalmucks and their Revolt . 86 
Appendix B : 

Selections from the Inscription of the Emperor Kien 

Long, translated into French by Father Amiot . 87 

Appendix C : 

Relations of De Quincey's Narrative to Bergmann's . 90 



INTRODUCTION 

I. Biographical Sketch of De Quincey. 

The long life of the "English Opium-Eater" (1785- 
1859) almost covered the history of our country from the 
Revolution to the Civil War, But he is to be thought of 
as belonging to the literary movement of the early part 
of the century, to the time of his boyish idol, Wordsworth, 
rather than to the time of his later and younger friend 
Oarlyle; to the time of Irving rather than to the time of 
Emerson. His father was a Manchester merchant of liter- 
ary tastes, who died early, leaving to his wife and six surviv- 
ing children an income of about eight thousand dollars a 
year. The boy Thomas, brought up among girls and women, 
was thoughtful and imaginative. ''From my birth," he 
says, " I was made an intellectual creature, and intellectual 
in the highest sense my pursuits and pleasures have been 
even from my schoolboy days." ^ Add that he was finely 
sensitive, and you will see that such a boy, were he English 
or French or American, would make his own world of 
dreams and live in that. He missed the education of 
cricket and football. No Eton or Rugby forced him to 
be an English boy. When he was only seven, indeed, his 
big brother William came home from school and put him 
through a course of daily braivls with factory boys. At 
length AVilliam was able to bestow this faint praise: 
"You're honest; you're willing, though lazy; you would 
pull, if you had the strength of a flea; and, though a 

' Confessions. 



X INTRODUCTION 

monstrous coward, you dou't run away."^ But that is 
the only physical discipline recorded in a life of intellect- 
ual experiences. 

"I was sent to various schools, great and small; and was very 
early distinguished for my classical attainments, especially for my 
knowledge of Greek. At thirteen I wrote Greek with ease ; and at 
fifteen my command of that language was so great that I not only 
composed Greek verses in lyric metres, but could converse in Greek 
fluently, and without embarrassment — an accomplishment which 
I have not since met with in any scholar of my times, and which, in 
my case, was owing to the practice of daily reading oif the news- 
papers into the best Greek I could furnish extempore ; for the neces- 
sity of ransacking my memory and invention for all sorts and 
combinations of periphrastic expressions, as equivalents for modern 
ideas, images, relations of things, etc., gave me a compass of diction 
which would never have been called out by a dull translation of 
moral essays, etc. ' That boy,' said one of my masters, pointing the 
attention of a stranger to me, * that boy could harangue an Athe- 
nian mob better than you or I could address an English one.' He 
who honoured me with this eulogy was a scholar, ' and a ripe and 
good one ; ' and, of all my tutors, was the only one whom I loved or 
reverenced. Unfortunately for me (and, as I afterwards learned, 
to this worthy man's great indignation), I was transferred to the 
care, first of a blockhead, who was in a perpetual panic lest I should 
expose his ignorance ; and finally, to that of a respectable scholar, 
at the head of a great school on an ancient foundation." ^ 

Try to pierce through the egotism of the record, which 
comes, not from vulgar vanity, but from a solitary life, to 
the high desires and attainments of this precocious boy. 
True, in his fifteenth year, visiting at Laxton, the country- 
seat of a family friend. Lady Carbery, he is found acting 
as literary adviser to the household; but to gain the affec- 
tion and admiration of this versatile woman, till she was 
like a sister to him, he must have been more than a prig. 
The same endearing quality appears in his visit to Ireland 

^ AidobiograjjJiic Sketches, i. 39, "^Confessions. 



INTRODUCTION xi 

with a boy of his own age, Lord Westport, and in the pleas- 
ure Lord Westport's father. Lord Altamont, found in 
talking with the brilliant boy. This middle-aged Irish 
peer even kept up for some time a correspondence with 
De Qaincey. More than Greek and Latin, then, the boy 
had learned at fifteen. Many years afterward he could 
write on the Irish rebellions from the first-hand knowl- 
edge he had picked up then in Ireland. He had an oj^en 
mind. One thing more. He had already discovered Words- 
worth's "We are Seven" at a time when the very few 
people who had heard of Wordsworth, heard only to laugh. 
He had an independent mind. 

The " great school " mentioned above was the Manches- 
ter Grammar School, which had been chosen by his guar- 
dians because it was entitled to certain scholarships at 
Oxford. De Quincey despised the master and hated the 
school. He declared that his health was being under- 
mined for lack of exercise, that he was quite prepared to 
go up to Oxford. The guardians, with their eyes on the 
scholarship, rejected all appeals for removal. He asked 
Lady Oarbery to lend him five guineas to help out the 
two he had left. She sent him ten. Then De Quincey 
ran away. 

"I waited until I saw the trunk placed on a wheelbarrow, and on 
its road to the carrier's ; then, ' with Providence ray guide,' I set off 
on foot, carrying a small parcel, with some articles of dress, under 
my arm ; a favourite English poet in one pocket, and a small 12mo 
volume, containing about nine plays of Euripides, in the other." ^ 

AVhen De Quincey ran away at seventeen, he was in 
thought a man. In practical experience he was neither 
then nor ever afterward more than a child. But would 
Wordsworth treat him as a man or as a runaway school- 
boy ? Sorrowfully inclining to the latter view, he gave 

' Confessions. 



xii INTRODUCTION 

up his plan of going straight to the Lakes, and went wan- 
dering in Wales. No one should read the account of 
these years of transition anywhere else than in De Quin- 
cey's own ''Confessions." The mere facts are compara- 
tively insignificant. He slept much out of doors; he 
wrote letters for bed or food; he studied German with a 
chance acquaintance; he finally went up to London in the 
hojDC of raising money on his prospects. In London he 
applied to many Jewish money-lenders in vain. His money 
gone, he walked the streets, sleeping in one of the empty 
rooms of a house where a pettifogging lawyer carried on 
some obscure and doubtful business. Hunger and expos- 
ure undermined his constitution and gave him a chronic 
malady of the stomach. None too soon came the reconcil- 
iation with the guardians from whom he had been hiding. 
It was arranged that he should live at the university on 
£100 a year. 

Nothing in the whole life of De Quincey makes less 
impression ujoon his readers, or seems to have made less 
impression upon himself, than Oxford. He entered 
Worcester College, December 17, 1803, and his name 
remained on the books till 1810; but he might as well 
have been reading in any other quiet place. He studied 
ancient philosophy, German literature, and metaphysics. 
He dipped into Hebrew with a German named Schwartz- 
burg; he was known to a few as brilliant in conversation. 
In 1808 he left without a degree; and the explanations of 
this, both his own and those advanced by his friends and 
biographers, tend only to strengthen the impression that 
De Quincey was a dilettante rather than a scholar. This 
period appears among his imaginative reminiscences only 
in * ' The English Mail Coach. ' ' He dreams, not of the old 
colleges, the gardens, the river, Magdalen tower — anything 
that has passed into the heart of any other man of letters 
— but of the coach that took him to London, of the " glory 



INTRODUCTION xiii 

of motion," the '' under-sense of indefinite danger," '' the 
conscious presence of a central intellect in the midst of 
vast distances." Nothing could better show his aloofness. 
Before definitely leaving Oxford, De Quincey had corres- 
ponded at some length with Wordsworth, and had visited 
Coleridge and Southey. While he was lingering undecided 
in London, reading a little law, meeting men of letters, 
he began the systematic use of opium. One of his chief 
pleasures was to take opium before going to the opera. 

"A chorus, etc., of elaborate harmony displayed before me, as in 
a piece of arras work, the whole of ray past life — not as if recalled 
by an act of memory, but as if present and incarnated in the music; 
no longer painful to dwell upon, but the detail of its incidents 
removed, or blended in some hazy abstraction, and its passions 
exalted, spiritualized, and sublimed. All this was to be had for five 
shillings. And over and above the music of the stage and the orches- 
tra, I had all around me, in the intervals of the performance, the 
music of the Italian language talked by Italian women — for the gal- 
lery was usually crowded with Italians; and I listened with a pleas- 
ure such as that with which Weld the traveller lay and listened, in 
Canada, to the sweet laughter of Indian women ; for the less you 
understand of a language, the more sensible you are to the melody 
or harshness of its sounds." ^ 

Opium was used also to heighten the pleasure of min- 
gling with the London crowd on Saturday night. 

"For the sake, therefore, of witnessing upon as large a scale as 
possible a spectacle with which my sympathy was so entire, I used 
often on Saturday nights, after I had taken opium, to wander forth, 
without much regarding the direction or the distance, to all the 
markets and other parts of London to which the poor resort of a 
Saturday night for laying out their wages. Many a family party, 
consisting of a man, his wife, and sometimes one or two of his chil- 
dren, have I listened to, as they stood consulting on their ways and 
means, or the strength of their exchequer, or the price of household 
articles.'"" 

^ Confessions. ^ Ibid. 



xiv INTRODUCTION 

His attitude of mind at this time, and, to some extent, 
throughout his life, appears significantly in the following: 

"I, whose disease it was to meditate too much, and to observe too 
little, and who, upon my first entrance at college, was nearly falling 
into a deep melancholy, from brooding too much on the sufferings 
which I had witnessed in London, was sufficiently aware of the ten- 
dencies of my own thoughts to do all I could to counteract them. I 
was, indeed, like a person who, according to the old legend, had 
entered the cave of Trophonius; and the remedies I sought were to 
force myself into society, and to keep my understanding in continual 
activity upon matters of science. But for these remedies I should 
certainly have become hypochondriacally melancholy. In after years, 
however, when my cheerfulness was more fully re-established, I 
yielded to my natural inclination for a solitary life. And, at that 
time, I often fell into these reveries upon taking opium; and more 
than once it has happened to me, on a summer night, when I have 
been at an open window, in a room from which I could overlook the 
sea at a mile below me, and could command a view of the great town 

of L , at about the same distance, that I have sat from sunset to 

sunrise, motionless, and without wishing to move." * 

From this unsettled life De Quincey roused himself to 
go where he had been strongly drawn since boyhood — to 
the Westmoreland Lakes and the society of those poets 
who have since been grouped as the Lake School. Cole- 
ridge, Southey, and, foremost of all, Wordsworth, were 
seeking to establish in England a kind of poetry essen- 
tially different from the poetry of the eighteenth century. 
The difference appears most strikingly in two character- 
istics. The eighteenth century preferred the interests of 
men and women in the city, and held to a somewhat for- 
mal and conventional expression. Wordsworth and his 
followers preached and practised a '^ return to nature," 
that is, a return to the simpler interests of country people, 
to the love of scenery apart from men and women, and to 
a more direct and natural expression. Again, the eighteenth 

' CotifesHt'ojis. 



INTR OD UCTION XV 

century discouraged imagination^ whereas imagination was 
made by these reformers almost the touchstone of true 
poetry. Though all the great poets of the time caught 
the spirit of this change, the critics and the public were so 
slow in following them that for some years the Lake School 
was a butt of ridicule. It was with the ardour of a disci- 
ple, then, that De Quincey, at the age of twenty-four, 
went to be near his heroes of literature. After living for 
some time with the Wordsworths at Grasmere, he took a 
lease of their cottage when they removed to a larger one, 
filled it with books, and spent about ten years in reading, 
playing with the Wordsworth children, walking and talk- 
ing to his heart's content with the poets themselves. He 
thus describes the Vale of Grasmere: 

" Once I absolutely went forwards from Coniston to the very gorge 
of Hammerscar, from which the whole Vale of Grasmere suddenly 
breaks upon the A'iew in a style of almost theatrical surprise, with 
its lovely valley stretching before the eye in the distance, the lake 
lying immediately below, with its solemn, ark-like island of four and 
a half acres in size seemingly floating on its surface, and its exquisite 
outline on the opposite shore, revealing all its little bays and wild 
sylvan margin, feathered to the edge with wild flowers and ferns. 
In one quarter, a little wood stretching for about half a mile towards 
the outlet of the lake ; more directly in opposition to the spectator, 
a few green fields ; and beyond them, just two bowshots from the 
water, a little white cottage gleaming from the midst of trees, with 
a vast and seemingly never-ending series of ascents rising above it 
to the height of more than three thousand feet." * 

The interior of the cottage is described in the '' Confes- 



'* Paint me, then, a room seventeen feet by twelve, and not more 
than seven and a half feet high. This, reader, is somewhat ambi- 
tiously styled in ray family the drawing-room ; but being contrived 
' a double debt to pay,' it is also, and more justly, termed the library, 

^ Antohiofjraphic Sketches, ii , 234. 



xvi INTRODUCTION 

for it happens that books are the only article of ])roperty in which 1 
am richer than my neighbours. Of these I have about five thousand, 
collected gradually since my eighteenth year. Therefore, painter, 
put as many as you can into this room. Make it populous with 
books ; and, furthermore, i)aint me a good fire ; and furniture plain 
and modest, befitting the unpretending cottage of a scholar. And 
near the fire paint me a tea-table; and (as it is clear that no creature 
can come to see one such a stormy night) place only two cups and 
saucers on the tea-tray ; and if you know how to paint such a thing 
symbolically, or otherwise, paint me an eternal tea-pot — eternal d 
pa7-te ante, and d parte post — for I usually drink tea from eight 
o'clock at night to four o'clock in the morning. . . . The next 
article brought forward should naturally be myself — a picture of the 
Opium-eater, with his ' little golden receptacle of the pernicious 
drug ' lying beside him on the table. ... No ; you may as 
well paint the real receptacle, which was not of gold, but of glass, 
and as much like a wine-decanter as possible. Into this you may 
put a quart of ruby-colored laudanum ; that, and a book of German 
Metaphysics placed by its side, will sufficiently attest my being in 
the neighbourhood." 

Literary leisure lias rarely been more perfectly realized. 
To most i^eople, indeed to his own family, he was a recluse; 
but to his few intimates he was the most delightful and 
profitable of companions. Professor Wilson, who was 
twice De Quincey's eize, and differed correspondingly in 
tastes, loved him dearly. The giant and the dwarf used 
to ramble interminably together, especially at night. 
These bachelor habits were hardly modified when, in 
1816, De Quincey married Margaret Simpson, daughter of 
a neighbouring farmer. The marriage led him to curb his 
alarming consumption of opium, and combined with his 
habit of giving money away recklessly to force him into 
writing for a living. But after a few magazine articles, 
an important examination of Ricardo's political economy, 
followed by some original work on the same subject, and a 
futile attempt to edit a country paper, he relapsed into 
opium dei)rcssion. It required a supreme effort of Avill 



INTRODUCTION xvii 

and the positive need of his wife and children finally to 
rouse him to systematic effort. 

In 1821 De Quincey went to live in London as a regular 
writer for the new London Magazine, just established by 
the publishers Taylor and Hessey. At their table he met 
the London literary men of the day, especially Lamb and 
Hood; and in their magazine appeared the '' Confessions of 
an English Opium -Eater," which made him famous. 
Thus he was thirty-six when he came before the public. 
Indeed, the public might never have heard of him at all 
but for his need of money. From this time on anecdotes 
thicken about the little figure of the Opium-Eater. The 
two things that struck every one most were his wonderful 
conversation and the confusion in which he worked. Here 
is a note by Hood : 

" When it was my frequent and agreeable duty to call on Mr. de 
Quincey . . . and I have found him at home, quite at home, in 
the midst of a German Ocean of literature in a storm, flooding all 
the floor, the tables, billows of books tossing, tumbling, surging 
open, on such occasions I have willingly listened by the hour whilst 
the philosopher, standing with his eyes fixed on one side of the room, 
seemed to be less speaking than reading from a * handwriting on the 
wall.' Now^ and then he would diverge, for a Scotch mile or two, to 
the right or left, till I was tempted to inquire with Peregrine in 
John Bull, ' Do you never deviate ? ' but he always came safely 
back to the point where he had left, not lost the scent, and thence 
hunted his topic to the end." ^ 

During his six or seven years' residence in London De 
Quincey's magazine- writing consisted mainly of essays on 
German and English literature and philosojDhy, and of 
translations from the German; but his range was always 
very wide. On political economy and history he wrote with 
assurance; on many other subjects with fluency. Gras- 

' Hood, Literary Meminiscences (quoted by Hogg, De Quincey and 
his Friends, p. 239). 



xviii INTROD UCTION 

mere he Yisited rarely; and in 1828 a growing connection 
with BlackiooocVs Magazine, through his old friend Pro- 
fessor Wilson, led to the removal of the whole family to 
Edinburgh. 

The Edinburgh period, though essentially one in liter- 
ary activity, is divided into two parts by other considera- 
tions. During the first third the family lived together in 
town. In 1835 the elder son, a promising boy of eighteen, 
died of brain fever. In 1837, the year in wdiich "The 
Revolt of the Tartars " was written, Mrs. De Quincey died. 
During the last two thirds, De Quincey had a cottage at 
Lasswade, not far from town, for the benefit of his chil- 
dren. His eldest daughter took charge of the household, 
and De Quincey, sometimes with them, sometimes in Edin- 
burgh lodgings, sometimes in Glasgow, continued to study 
and wa-ite in seclusion till his death in 1859. He w-as now 
famous on both sides of the Atlantic. But though he 
continued to write w^ithout apparent flagging,^ and though 
his conversation continued to enchant the few^ who felt its 
spell, it is impossible not to see that his afflictions and the 
ultimate effects of opium had exaggerated his eccentricities 
into something grotesque and pitiable. He was a slovenly 
old man, unstrung, often confused. Brilliant he was still, 
but by flashes; gentle and courteous he could not help 
being, but he had forgotten how to dress, and he feared 
society. Through his last years there is a painful groping, 
a pathetic incompetence. But his power of reflection and 
expression survived all loss of practical efficiency. That 
died last. At the end, as at the beginning, he w^as "an 
intellectual creature." 

"Intellectual creature," indeed, is a phrase that sums 
up what in the man's life is most memorable. He w^as 
purely a man of letters. Macaulay gave years to politics; 
Scott was anxious to found estates and a noble family; but 
all De Quincev cared for was first readins: and thinkinsr, 



INTRODUCTION xix 

and secondarily talking and writing. His was an inner 
life. He never travelled farther than Ireland, and after 
his coming to Grrasmere the externals of his life are insig- 
nificant. A life so self-centred was, of necessity, egotist- 
ical, not in vulgar vanity and selfishness, but in habitual 
spinning out of himself. But, what is more important, it 
was above all imaginative, moving in the world of art rather 
than in the world of fact, loving music, speculation^ 
mystery. 

It is only to look upon these traits from another side to 
add that he was abstracted, eccentric, incompetent in 
every-day matters. ^ ' I have just set my hair on fire, ' ' he 
remarks casually in a letter to his publisher. During the 
Edinburgh period his lodgings became, as he expressed it, 
*' snowed up ; " that is, the confusion of books and papers 
reached the point of crowding out the author. His rem- 
edy was very simple. He locked the door, took other lodg- 
ings, and began afresh. "When one knows that this hap- 
pened more than once, it is easier to believe the anecdotes 
current about this period. 

"His clothes had generally a look of extreme age, and also of 
having been made for a person somewhat larger than himself. I 
believe the real cause of this was that he had got much thinner in 
those later years, whilst he wore, and did wear, I suppose till the 
end of his life, the clothes that had been made for him years before. 
I have sometimes seen appearances about him of a shirt and shirt- 
collar, but usually there were no indications of these articles of 
dress. When I came to visit him in his lodgings, I saw him in all 
stages of costume ; sometimes he would come in to me from his bed- 
room to his parlour, as on this occasion, with shoes, but no stockings, 
and sometimes with stockings, but no shoes. When in bed, where I 
also saw him from time to time, he wore a large jacket — not exactly 
an under-jacket, but a jacket made in the form of a coat, of white 
flannel ; something like a cricketer's coat in fact. In the street his 
appearance was equally singular. He walked with considerable 
rapidity (he said walking was the only athletic exercise in which he 
had ever excelled) and with nil odd. one sided, and yet straight- 



XX INTRODUCTION 

forward motion, moving his legs only, and neither his arms, head, 
nor any other part of his body — like Wordsworth's cloud — 

'Moving altogether, if lie moved at all.' 

His hat, which had the antediluvian aspect characteristic of the rest 
of his clothes, was generally stuck on the back of his head, and no 
one who ever met that antiquated figure, with that strangely dreamy 
and intellectual face, working its way rapidly, and with an oddly 
deferential air, through any of the streets of Edinburgh — a sight 
certainly by no means common, for he was very seldom to be seen in 
town — could ever forget it. He was very fond of walking, but gen- 
erally his walks were merely into town to his publisher's office (Mr. 
Hogg's, then in Nicolson Street) and back again to Lasswade. Till 
he was nearly seventy he took this walk — one of twelve miles — 
without inconvenience." ' 

"Roofed by a huge wide-awake, which makes his tiny figure look 
like the stalk of some great fungus, with a lantern of more than 
common dimensions in his hand, away he goes down the wooded 
path, up the steep bank, along the brawling stream, and across the 
waterfall — and ever as he goes there comes from him a continued 
stream of talk, concerning the philosophy of Immanuel Kant, and 
othei' kindred matters. Surely if we two were seen by any human 
eyes, it must have been supposed that some gnome, or troll, or kel- 
pie, was luring the listener to his doom. The worst of such affairs 
as this, was the consciousness that, when left, the old man would 
continue walking on until, weariness overcoming him, he would take 
his rest, wherever that happened, like some poor mendicant. He 
used to denounce, with his most fervid eloquence, that barbarous and 
brutal provision of the law of England, which rendered sleeping in 
the open air an act of vagrancy, and so punishable, if the sleeper 
could not give a satisfactory account of himself — a thing which 
Papaverius never could give under any circumstances." ^ 

" For instance, those who knew him a little might call him a loose 
man in money matters ; those who knew him closer laughed at the 
idea of coupling any notion of pecuniary or other like responsibility 
with his nature. You might as well attack the character of the 
nightingale, which may have nipped up your five-pound note and 

• J. R. Findlay {Hogg, ibid., p. 129). 

^John Hill Burton, T7ie Book Hunter (chapter entitled "Papa- 
verius," quoted by Hogg, ihid., p. 254). 



INTR 01) UCTION xxi 

torn it into shreds to serve as nest-building material. Only immedi- 
ate, craving necessities could ever extract from him an acknowledg- 
ment of the common vulgar agencies by which men subsist in civil- 
ised society ; and only while the necessity lasted did the acknowledg- 
ment exist. Take just one example, which will render this clearer 
than any generalities. He arrives very late at a friend's door, and 
on gaining adtnissicni — a process in which he often endured impedi- 
ments — he represents with his usual silver voice and measured 
rhetoric the absolute necessity of his being then and there invested 
with a sum of money in the current coin of the realm, the amount 
limited, from the nature of his necessities, which he very freely 
states, to seven shillings and sixpence. Discovering, or fancying he 
discovers, signs that his eloquence is likely to be unproductive, he is 
fortunately reminded that, should there bo any difficulty in connec- 
tion with security for the repayment of the loan, he is at that moment 
in j)osse3sion of a document, which he is prepared to deposit with 
the lender — a document calculated, he cannot doubt, to remove a 
feeling of anxiety which the most prudent person could experience 
in the circumstances. After a rummage in his pockets, which de- 
velops miscellaneous and varied, but as yet by no means valuable 
possessions, he at last comes to the object of his search, a crumpled 
bit of paper, and spreads it out — a fifty-pound bank-note ! The 
friend, who knew him w^ell, was of opinion that, had he, on deliver- 
ing over the seven shillings and sixpence, received the bank-note, 
he would never have heard anything more of the transaction from 
the other party." * 

Of course it is easy to exaggerate the impression of De 
Qiiincey's abstraction. He read the papers and was inter- 
ested in current events, though lie was prone to reflect 
away from the facts. His conversation, too, was a strong 
link between him and his fellows. But though this often 
started among current events, or even in commonplaces, 
it was almost sure to become imaginative, speculative, 
sometimes almost rhapsodic. This was the man's great 
charm, the charm that attached to him a brilliant follow- 

' John Hill Burton, The Book Hunter (chapter entitled " Papa- 
verius," quoted by Hogg, ihid., p. 255). 



xxii INTRODUCTION 

ing and a romantic interest, heightening his fame to this 
clay. His essay on "Conversation" shows his ideals and 
gives some hint of his power. What he was in congenial 
company appears in the following: 

" He did not quite, as Burton had told me he would do, talk maga- 
zine articles, but the literary habit was notable, though not in the 
least obtrusive, in all his talk. One effect of this was somewhat trying 
to an inexperienced listener; for when in the flow of his conversation 
he came to the close of one of his beautifully rounded and balanced 
paragraphs, he would pause in order to allow you to have your say, 
with the result sometimes of rather taking one aback, especially as 
the subject of conversation often seemed to have been brought, by 
his conduct of it, to its complete and legitimate conclusion. The 
listener was apt to feel that he had perorated rather than paused. 
In his mode of conversing, as in everything else, his courtesy of 
manner was observable. He never monopolised talk, allowed every 
one to have a fair chance, and listened with respectful patience to 
the most commonplace remarks from any one present. The fact 
that any one was, for the time, a member of the company in which 
he also happened to be, evidently in his eyes entitled the speaker to 
all consideration and respect. But he had a just horror of bores, 
and carefully avoided them." ^ 

"His voice was extraordinary; it came as if from dreamland ; but 
it was the most musical and impressive of voices. In convivial life, 
what then seemed to me the most remarkable trait of De Quincey's 
character, was the power he possessed of easily changing the tone of 
ordinary thought and conversation into that of his own dreamland, 
till his auditors, with wonder, found themselves moving pleasantly 
along with him in a sphere of which they might have heard and read, 
perhaps, but which had ever appeared to them inaccessible, and far, 
far away. Seeing that he was always good-natured and social, he 
would take part, at commencement, in any sort of tattle or twaddle. 
The talk might be of ' beeves, ' and he could grapple with them if 
expected to do so, but his musical cadences were not in keeping with 
such work, and in a few minutes (not without some strictly logical 
sequence) he could escape at will from beeves to butterflies, and 
thence to the soul's immortality; to Plato, and Kant, and Schelling, 
and Fichte; to Milton's early years, and Shakespeare's sonnets; to 

» J. R. Findlay, ibid., p. 127. 



INTRODUCTION xxiii 

Wordsworth and Coleridge; to Homer and ^schylus; to St. Thomas 
of Aquin, St. Basil, and St. Chrysostom. But he by no means ex- 
cluded themes from real life, according to his view of that life, but 
would recount profound mysteries from his own experiences — visions 
that had come over him in his loneliest walks among the mountains, 
and passages within his own personal knowledge, illustrating, if not 
proving, the doctrines of dreams, of warnings, of second sight, and 
mesmerism. And whatever the subject might be, every one of his 
sentences (or of his chapters, I might say) was woven into the most 
perfect logical texture, and uttered in a tone of sustained melody." ^ 
"Presently the flood of talk passes forth from them, free, clear, 
and continuous — never rising into declamation, never losing a cer- 
tain mellow earnestness, and all consisting of sentences as exqui- 
sitely jointed together as if they were destined to challenge the criti- 
cism of the remotest posterity. Still the hours stride over each 
other, and still flows on the stream of gentle rhetoric, as if it were 
lahitur et labetur in omne voluhilis cevum. It is now far into the 
night, and slight hints and suggestions are propagated about sepa- 
ration and home-going. The topic starts new ideas on the progress 
of civilisation, the effect of habit on man in all ages, and the power 
of the domestic affections. Descending from generals to the special, 
he could testify to the inconvenience of late hours; for, was it not 
the other night that, coming to what was, or what he believed to be, 
his own door, he knocked and knocked, but the old woman within 
either couldn't or wouldn't hear him, so he scrambled over a wall, 
and having taken his repose in a furrow, was able to testify to the 
extreme unpleasantness of such a couch. The predial groove might 
indeed nourish kindly the infant seeds and shoots of the peculiar 
vegetable to which it was appropriated, but was not a comfortable 
place of repose for adult man.'"* 

Perhaps, indeed, he found his most natural expression in 
talking rather than in writing, and certainly his writing 
has the discursive character of talk. 

With the exception of " The Logic of Political Econ- 
omy " and the unimportant novel " Klosterheim," De 
Quincey's work consists entirely of articles for the reviews. 

^ R. P. Gillies, Memoirs of a Literary Veteran, ibid., p. 241. 
' John Hill Burton, The Book Hunter, ibid., p. 252. 



xxW INTRODUCTION 

These cover a very great range of subjects,^ following his 
reading, which was wide rather than dee^:*. He made pre- 
tensions to scholarship in many fields, bnt he seems never 
to have carried on any long and connected research. He was 
bookish; he preferred reading to writing, his work some- 
times ^'smells of the lamp," and he delights in pedantic 
foot-notes; but he cannot, except in the precision of his 
language, be called scholarly. This characteristic of his 
work is typical both of his habit of mind and of his time. 

As a critic his value is perhaps overestimated. On the 
one hand, he united with Coleridge and Carhde in intro- 
ducing English readers to German literature and j^hiloso- 
phy. He was also among the first to aj^preciate tlie new 
poetry of Wordsworth and Coleridge, and to contend for 
its just jolace in literature. On the other hand, he failed to 
appreciate French literature, slighted Goethe, scorned 
Crabbe, preferred Dickens to Thackeray, and ventured to 
attack the Eepublic of Plato. A recent w^riter in the 
Saturday Review (vol. 69, p. 17) charges him with being 
"destitute of the true critical spirit, the sense of the 
actual." But there is no doubt that, like Macaulay, he 
did much to give the average reader a more intelligent 
interest in literature, and to lead him toward culture. A 
good example of this valuable service is his illuminative 
essay "' On the Knocking at the Gate in Macbeth." 

In any case De Quincey's value as a critic is not the 
measure of his excellence. His most popular and interest- 
ing works, the works by which he himself set most store, 
are those pieces of imaginative reminiscence beginning 

^ An excellent classification of De Quincey's various writings has 
been made by Professor Masson \\\ chapter xii. of his life of De 
Quincey (English Men of Letters Series). Compare also the classi- 
fication in Dr. Shad worth H. Hodgson's essay on " The Genius of De 
Quincey " {Outcast Essays, reprinted in Hogg's De Quincey and his 
Friends, p. 314). 



INTRODUCTION xxv 

with the ''Confessions of an English Opium-Eater," and 
proceeding through the " Suspiria de Profundis " (indud- 
ing " Levana," " Savannah-la-Mar, " etc.), and the *' Auto- 
biographic Sketches," to "The Euglish Mail Coach." 
Not only did these catch the taste of the time and set a 
fashion on both sides of the Atlantic,^ but they also hold a 
peculiar place in English literature. 

II. The Eeyolt of the Tartars.^ 

The sub-title of this piece, '' Flight of the Kalmuck 
Khan and his People," is a more accurate description. In 
order to appreciate the work as a whole, before examining 
it in detail, it is necessary to know (1) Avho the Kalmucks 
are, (2) Avhat are the actual, the historical facts of their 
revolt, (3) how this historical material was handled by De 
Quincey. 

A. The Kalmuchs. 

The Kalmucks are Mongol nomads of the Caspian 
steppes. Thus they belong to that race whose countless 
hordes crushed alike the armies of China and of Russia in 
the thirteenth century, seized both thrones, and, pushing 
far west into Hungary, menaced all Christian Europe.^ 
Their famous chief Genghis, or Jingis, Khan (1162-1227) 
is said to have ruled over the largest empire ever brought 
under a single man. Even Timur (died, 1-105), a much 

^ Note, for instance, Hawthorne's shorter pieces; and, later, Mitch- 
ell's Reveries of a Bachelor and Dream Life. 

^ Published in Blackwood's Edinburfjh 3Iagazine, 1837 ; repub- 
lished in Hogg's collective edition. Selections, Grave and Gay, from 
Writings Published and Unpuhlished, by Thomas De Qtiincey,lSDS- 
1860, vol. iv. {Miscellanies, vol. ii.) 

^Consult Fisher's Outlines of Unv'ersal History, pp. 283, 349, 
351 ; Ploetz's Epitome of Universal History, pp. 240, 248, 277 ; or a 
cyclopaedia, under the headings Genghis Khan, Tamerlane, Mongols. 



xxvi INTRODUCTION 

lesser chiefs became, in the literature of western Europe, 
a proverb of wonderful conquest under the name of 
Tamerlane. 

But no stable empire could be built by men so nearly- 
savage and so naturally nomadic. The Mongol hordes, 
disintegrated and scattered, became so involved with the 
races among which they wandered, that it is difficult to 
reach a classification. Thus the Kalmucks are grouped by 
De Quincey among the Tartars; and though in this he 
varies from the best authorities of his own time, it is not 
even yet certain whether he is right or wrong. Probably, 
however, the Kalmucks are descended, not from the Tartar, 
but from the Kerait branch of the Mongols. The partic- 
ular Kalmucks with which De Quincey 's narrative has to 
do were of the tribe called Torguts (Torgotes, Torgouths). 
In 1616 these Torguts migrated from their country of 
Sungaria (Jungaria), in Thibet, to the steppes of the 
Caspian Sea. Though nominally owing allegiance to Rus- 
sia, they plundered, after their fashion, both the Russian 
and the Turkish borders, and kept up occasional commu- 
nication with China. But the connection with Russia 
gradually strengthening, the Torguts became fairly estab- 
lished in wide camping-grounds, from the Don on the 
west, to the Jaik (Ural) and the Caspian Sea on the east, 
and from Tsaritsin on the north, to the slopes of the Cau- 
casus on the south. 

As to the main traits of these Mongol nomads all trav- 
ellers agree. The following extracts are from the narrative 
of a French engineer, M. de Hell, and his wife: ^ 

" The Kalmucks, all of them nomads, are exclusively engaged in 
rearing cattle, and know nothing whatever of agriculture. They 
breed camels, oxen, sheep, and, above all, horses, of which they have 
an excellent breed ; small, but strong, agile, and of great endurance. 

^ See Appendix A. 



INTRODUCTION xxvii 

I have ridden a Kalmuck horse often eighteen and even twenty-five 
leagues without once dismounting. The Russian cavalry is mounted 
chiefly on horses from the Caspian steppes. . . . 

" Among the Asiatic races there is none whose features are so dis- 
tinctly characterized as those of the Mongols. Paint one individual 
and you paint the whole nation. . . . 

" All the Kalmucks have eyes set obliquely, with eyelids little 
opened, scanty black eye-brows, noses deeply depressed near the 
forehead, prominent cheek-bones, spare beards, thin moustaches, 
and a brownish-yellow skin. The lips of the men are thick and 
fleshy, but the Avomen, particularly those of high rank, have heart- 
shaped mouths of no common beauty. All have enormous ears, pro- 
jecting strongly from the head, and their hair is invariably black. 
The Kalmucks are generally small, but with figures well rounded, and 
an easy carriage. . . . 

" Like all inhabitants of vast plains, the Kalmucks have exceed- 
ingly keen sight. An hour after sunset, they can still distinguish 
a camel at a distance of three miles or more. . . . They have also 
an extraordinary faculty for wending their way through their path- 
less wildernesses. Without the least apparent mark to guide them, 
they traverse hundreds of miles with their flocks, without ever wan- 
dering from the right course, 

" The costume of the common Kalmucks is not marked by any 
very decided peculiarity, the cap alone excepted. It is invariably of 
yellow cloth trimmed with black lambskin, and is worn by both 
sexes. I am even tempted to think that there are some superstitious 
notions connected with it, seeing the difficulty I experienced in pro- 
curing one as a specimen. The trousers are wide and open below. 
Persons in good circumstances wear two long tunics, one of which 
is tied round the waist, but the usual dress consists only of trousers 
and a jacket of skin, with tight sleeves. . . . The men shave a 
part of their heads, and the rest of the hair is gathered into a single 
mass, which hangs on their shoulders. The women wear two tresses, 
and this is really the only visible criterion of their sex. The princes 
have almost all adopted the Circassian costume, or the uniform of 
the Cossacks of Astrakhan, to which body some of them belong. The 
ordinary foot-gear is red boots with very high heels, and generally 
much too short. The Kalmucks, like the Chinese greatly admire 
small feet ; and as they are constantly on horseback, their short boots, 
which would be torturing to us, cause them no inconvenience. But 
they are very bad pedestrians ; the form of their boots obliges them 



xxviii INTROD UCTION 

to walk on their toes, and they are exceedingly distressed when they 
have not a horse to mount. . . . 

" The Kalmucks, like all pastoral people, live very frugally. 
Dairy produce forms their chief aliment, and their favourite beverage 
is tea. They eat meat also, particidarly horse flesh, which they 
prefer to any other, but very well done, and not raw, as some writers 
have asserted. . . . 

"Their dwellings are felt tents, called Mhitkas by the Russians. 
They are four or five yards in diameter, cylindrical to the height of 
a man's shoulder, with a conical top, open at the apex to let the 
smoke escape. The frame is light, and can be taken asunder for the 
convenience of carriage. The skeleton of the roof consists of a 
wooden ring, forming the aperture for the smoke, and of a great 
number of small spars supporting the ring, and resting on the upper 
circumference of the cylindrical frame. The whole tent is light 
enough to be carried by two camels. A kihitka serves for a whole 
family; men, women, and children sleep in it promiscuously with- 
out any separation. In the centre there is always a trivet, on which 
stands the pot used for cooking tea and meat. The floor is partly 
covered with felts, carpets, and mats; the couches are opposite the 
door, and the walls of the tent are hung with arms, leathern vessels, 
household utensils, quarters of meat, etc." 

The religion of the Kalmucks is Lamaism or Lamanism. 
The priests are called Lamas, and the two chief Lamas in 
Thibet occupy mucli the same position as the mediaeval 
Popes, in that their supremacy is temporal as well as spir- 
itual.^ Of these two the Dalai-Lama, though spiritually 
only the peer, is temporally the superior of the Bantshin 
Lama. This Thibetan hierarchy is, of course, weakened 
by the increasing pressure of civilization. But at the time 
of which De Quincey writes, it was practically unimpaired. 
Li fact, it was probably the moving power in the great 
migration. 

Lamaism is the degraded form of Buddhism developed 
in Thibet and subsequently reformed by Tsong-Kaba. It 
is remarkable for an elaborate liturgy, an inordinate num- 

' See the notes on 13 17 and 14 10. 



INTRODUCTION xxix 

ber of priests (lamas) of various degrees^ aud, in spite of 
the perfunctory and superstitious manner in which most of 
the Kalmucks perform its rites, for a strong hold upon its 
followers. Not only are these nomads distinctly religious^ 
but they have resisted centuries of missionary influence, 
both Christian and Mohammedan. ^ 

B. The Revolt. . 

In the winter of 1770-1771, almost the entire tribe of 
Torguts, to the number of perhaps 400,000 souls, re- 
volted in a body from Kussia, and withdrew across the 
Kirghiz steppes to the frontiers of China. The cause of 
this remarkable migration is doubtful. The earliest ac- 
count, that of Father Amiot,^ assigns two reasons: (1) 
political — the increasing interference of Russia with the 
nomadic independence of the Torguts; (2) religious — the 
growing danger of isolation, among encroaching Chris- 
tians and Mohammedans, from the source and strength of 
Lamaism. This is the most reasonable explanation thus 
far offered. De Quincey, however, adopted the interpreta- 
tion of Bergman n, which makes the revolt a plot of ven- 
geance carried out by a Torgut prince named Zebek Dorolii. 

In order to place this strange episode in relation to the 
greater movements of its time, observe what it meant, first 
to China, then to Russia. China, it would appear, liad 
been scheming to recall the Torguts to their old home in 
Sungaria, which had since been brought more fully under 
Chinese control. Perhaps the astute emperor, Kien Long, 
thought to steal the defenders of the Russian frontier for 

^ An excellent philosophical account of Lamanism has been writ- 
ten by Professor Rhys- Davids for the Encydopoedia Brltwmica. 
For a more i)opular account, abounding in interesting anecdote, see 
the travels of Father Hue, cited in Appendix A, especially vol. i., p. 
116, and vol. ii., pp. 148 and 212. 
- See Appendix A. 



XXX INTRODUCTION 

the defense of liis own frontier. This, taken conversely, 
shows the significance of the revolt to Russia. But an 
added significance on this side appears in the time of its 
occurrence. It happened just after the great plague at 
Moscow, and during a period of widespread popular rest- 
lessness and discontent which culminated in the rebellion 
of Pougatchef , the false Peter III. Ramband ^ thus sum- 
marizes the connection: 

" The Cossacks of the Jaik and the Don, and the Zaporogues of the 
Dnieper, chafed under the new yoke \i. e., the Russian yoke] of au- 
thority. The tribes of the Volga (Pagan, Mussulman, or Christian, 
in spite of themselves) only awaited a pretext to recover their lawless 
liberty, or to reclaim the lands which the Russian colonists had 
usurped. 

" How little these ungovernable elements accommodated themselves 
to the laws of a modern State was seen when, in 1770, the Kalmuck- 
Torgaouts (men, women, and children), to the number of about 
300,000, with their cattle, their tents, and their carts, abandoned 
their encampments. Ravaging everything in their road, they crossed 
the Volga, and retired to the territory of the empire of China. 
When we add to these malcontents the vagabonds of all kinds — the 
disfrocked monks, the military deserters, fugitive serfs, highway- 
men, and Volga pirates — we shall see that Russia, especially in her 
Oriental part, contained all the materials necessary for an immense 
Jacquerie." 

Thus Catherine II. had two main motives in the appar- 
ently foolish pursuit of the Kalmucks: (1) her supremacy 
over the nomad hordes was at stake; (2) one of her pet 
projects was to increase the scanty population of her vast 
territory. This latter purpose, in spite of the introduction 
of German colonists, had just received so terrible a blow 
from the ravages of the plague at Moscow that she could 
hardly endure the loss of a whole tribe, even of nominal 
subjects. Moreover, there were added two minor consid- 
erations : (1) the Kalmucks formed an important part of 

^History uf Russia, vol. ii., pp. 13;], 134. 



INTRODUCTION xxxi 

her cavalry; and (2) Russia and China were old enemies. 
It is not surprising, then, that she should have made even 
so extraordinary an effort to intercept the Kalmuck flight. 

C. De Quincey's Narrative {in General). 

Now how does this curious chapter of history happen to 
appear among the writings of De Quincey ? In the first 
place, the range of De Quincey 's topics is remarkably wide. 
It is no more surprising that he should Avrite on ^' The 
Revolt of the Tartars " than on '^ The Toilette of a Hebrew 
Lady." But we have some hints of nearer reasons. De 
Quincey's interest in China appears also in two long articles 
for the Titan y reprinted in a pamphlet entitled " China," 
in 1857. Again, Gibbon, whose great history De Quincey 
knew well, mentions the revolt in his twenty-sixth chapter, 
and adds a note (51) referring to the narrative of Father 
Amiot. Finally, in De Quincey's "Homer and the 
Homeridse," appears this passage: 

"Some years ago I published a paper on the Flight of the Kal- 
muck Tartars from Russia. Bergraann, the German from whom 
that account was chiefly drawn, resided for a long time among the 
Kalmucks, and had frequent opportunities of hearing musical recita- 
tions selected from the ' Dschangaeriade.' This is the great Tartar 
epic," ^ etc. 

Perhaps De Quincey consulted Bergmann's book merely 
for further evidence as to the extent and accuracy of oral 
epic traditions. At any rate, by whatever chain of con- 
nection, he became fascinated by another part of the book, 
the story of the Kalmuck revolt. 

From this starting point how did De Quincey proceed ? 
Nowadays the plan would be, even if an author intended 
merely an historical romance, to consult all the authorita- 

' Pp. 388, 389, in Hogg's edition. 



XXX 11 



INTRODUCTION 



tive accounts, compare tliem, and settle upon the true ver- 
sion, or choose the most interesting. De Quincey puts his 
])iece forward as history, and accurate history, but appar- 
ently he knew only Bergmann's account, and certainly he 
followed or abandoned this at will.^ 

Such a method, if the piece were to be judged as history, 
would be open to serious charges. But what De Quincey 
really desired and achieved was not an accurate account; it 
was an imaginative realization. Paragraphs 1-3 announce 
this point of view; it appears again strikingly in paragraphs 
17, 20, and 29; it leads to a final climax in paragraphs 38- 
41. Bergmann's narrative suggested to De Quincey's im- 
agination vivid pictures of great empires, vast distances, 
unspeakable horror and misery. These pictures are the 
basis and the strength of the piece. All the rest is merely 
subsidiary — often striking or penetrative, sometimes mis- 
taken or absurd, but essentially subsidiary. In short, the 
piece is not so much a work of history as a work of poetry. 
In order to appreciate this more fully, it is necessary to ex- 
amine the style in detail. 

D. De Quincey^ s Narrative (in Detail). 

In studying the style of De Quincey, as it appears in this 
piece, two main points are to be considered: (1) the con- 
struction, the way in which the piece is put together, as a 
whole, and in its separate paragraphs and sentences; (2) 
the diction, that is, the habit of language, the choice of 
words. 

i. T7ie construction of the wJiole.—J)e Quincey places 
as the culmination of the revolt the scene at Lake Tengis, 
the frightful battle in the water. Bergmann says that 
after this the Kalmucks had still to skirmish with the tribes 

^ For a detailed examination of the correspondences and varia- 
tions, see Appendix C. 



INTRODUCTION xxxiii 

beyond. Why did De Quincey change the place of this 
incident ? Plainly to gain a climax (see 32 26-35) ; that 
is, to lead up through the various ills of the march to this 
most striking horror of all. After this, in his narrative, 
there is simply the brief subsidence into rest at the end. 
Here is seen the literary principle of emphasis, which may 
be stated simply as follows: important parts should have 
important places. Above all, the interest should increase 
up to the climax. In another view, the law of emphasis is 
a law of proportion. The important parts must not only 
have important places, they must also have most space. In 
this view the *^ Eevolt of the Tartars " is not so excellent. 
The introduction is disproportionately long; for the action 
does not begin until page 26, and there are only sixty-six 
pages in all. 

This consideration leads naturally to a second recognized 
law of literature, the principle of unity (see 4 16), which 
requires that every part of a piece should contribute to one 
main interest, should unite to produce one main effect. 
The principle is not carefully observed in this piece; but 
it will be seen that the various interests of the Eussian 
commandant, Kichinskoi, the scheming Zebek Dorchi, the 
bloodthirsty Kirghises, the emperor of China, — all com- 
bine pretty well to increase one main interest, the tragic 
greatness and horror of the Kalmuck flight. To this there 
is one exception, the parenthetical story of the Russian 
Weseloff (paragraphs 34 and 35). But here De Quincey 
had at least more art than Bergmann, who tacked the 
story on at the end. And notice that De Quincey is careful 
to unite even this with the main narrative by the scene in 
which Weseloff saves the life of the Khan. 

Indeed, the *' Eevolt of the Tartars" has more unity 
than is at all common in De Quincey. The most serious 
charge brought against his writing is that it abounds in 
digressions. Instead of talking about the one thing that 



xxxiv INTRODUCTION 

is put forth as his subject, lie seems to be talking of what- 
ever comes into his head. For example, the piece entitled 
"The Nation of London,"^ opens as follows, the paren- 
theses indicating digressions: 

I. London exercises a visible attraction throughout the 
kingdom [two-page foot-note on ancient Rome]. 

II. Our approach was through rural suburbs, not by any 
great road [On the great roads how different the approach! 
(1) in the premonitions of the metropolis (note on trepi- 
dation and agitation), (2) ia the sense of losing one's 
identity in the throng — two pages]. 

III. I remember the aAve of our arrival. 

lY. AVhat should we go to see ? There were so many 
things to see that we could decide on nothing. [I have 
had in my life three great disappointments — (1) in a paint- 
ing of Cape Horn (just as people have been disappointed 
[though, by the way, less reasonably] in the view from 
Mount Etna, one page); (2) in Garrick's farewell; (3) in 
the inauguration of George IV. (the very idea of Garrick's 
farewell was as absurd as our present dilemma — one page)]. 

This habit of corkscrewing through an essay is due 
somewhat to the fact that from such magazine articles the 
editors and their readers expected, not the development of 
a definite line of thought on a fixed subject, but a stream 
of literary talk. Often, in fact, there is no subject, prop- 
erly speaking. One of these articles is simply so many 
pages of reminiscence, brought to a graceful close when 
the author was tired, or the editor had no more space. 
But the habit is due mainly to De Quincey's vivid imagina- 
tion. One picture called up another, until sometimes his 
very strength in suggestion betrayed him into weakness. 

To whatever due, this discursive habit is De Quincey's 
great fault — a fault that runs through most of his work. 

^Autobiographic Sketches, vol. i. De Quincey tells how he first 
went up to Loudon with Lord Westport. 



INTRODUCTION xxxv 

"What was pardonable in reminiscence became unpar- 
donable in the critical essays. It is not enough to say 
that he never lost his way, that he evcDtually came back to 
the point, or even that the digressions are often delightful 
in themselves. There is no denying the grave defect in 
art. What should be said, however, is that he is capable of 
perfect unity, for that adds a peculiar charm to '' Levana." 

Coherence is a convenient name for the third great 
principle of literary construction, which deuiands that the 
parts should succeed in natural order, without break or jar. 
Run through the essay rapidly, pausing only to observe 
how carefully, in most cases, the beginning of each para- 
graph refers to the thought of the preceding, and leads up 
to the new stage of the story. ^ This skill in coherence, 
extending to the nicest adjustment of details, always does 
much to relieve the strain of De Quincey's digressions. 

ii. Construction of se2)ar ate paragraphs. — Now test the 
paragraphs separately by these three principles of empha- 
sis, unity, and coherence. For instance, note the emphatic 
close of paragraph 1 ; test some of the long paragraphs to 
see if they contain digressions, or give too much space to 
subordinate matters; finally, observe how carefully De 
Quincey is wont to put near the beginning of each sen- 
tence some word, some cod junction, some demonstrative, 
some important noun rejoeated, to make a coupling with 
the preceding sentence. For example, in paragraph 6 
(11 19): " The very hopelessness of the scheme grounded 
his hope, and he resolved to execute a vengeance whicli 
should involve, as it were, in the unity of a well-laid 
tragic fable, all whom he judged to be his enemies. TJiat 
vengeance lay," etc. 

iii. Co7istruction of sentences. — De Quincey's sen- 
tences are long and somewhat formal. He was too re- 

^ This survey may be helped by the paragraph summaries in Ihe 
notes. 



XXX vi INTRODUCTION 

flective, and too fond of fine distinctions, to cultivate tlie 
loose, brisk style of disconnected short sentences. So his 
sentences sound deliberate. Notice the following (18 
26) : " Meantime, how much it must have co-operated with 
the other motives previously acting upon Oubacha in sus- 
taining his determination to revolt, and how powerfully it 
must have assisted the efforts of all the Tartar chieftains 
in preparing the minds of their people to feel the necessity 
of this difficult enterprise, by arming their pride and their 
suspicions against the Russian Government, through the 
keenness of their sympathy with the wrongs of their in- 
sulted prince, may be readily imagined." This suspended 
form of sentence, which remains incomplete till the last 
word, is called periodic. It is a favourite form with many 
classical writers, for instance, Cicero. De Quincey may 
have caught it either directly from the classics or indirectly 
from Sir Thomas Browne and his other favourite seven- 
teenth-century authors. 

iv. Diction. — The term imaginative gives the key to 
De Quincey 's choice of words because it gives the key to 
his method. In the preface to his " Autobiographic 
Sketches," he says: 

"On these (^.e., Confessions, Suspiria, etc.), as modes of impas- 
sioned prose ranging under no precedents that I am aware of in any 
Uterature, it is much more difficult to speak justly. . . . Two re- 
marks only I shall address to the equity of my reader. First, I desire 
to remind him of the perilous difficulty besieging all attempts to 
clothe in words the visionary scenes derived from the world of 
dreams, where a single false note, a single word in a wrong key, 
ruins the whole music; and, secondly, I desire him to consider the 
utter sterility of universal literature in this one department of im- 
passioned prose." ^ 

The " impassioned prose " ^ of which De Quincey speaks 

^Autobiographic Sketches, i., xvii. (Hogg's edition). 
* See Professor Masson's Wordsworth, Shelley, Keats, and Other 
Essays, p. 257. 



INTROD UCTIOX xxx vii 

is hardly to be expected iu the historical and critical 
pieces. But if it appears in only a few pages of the '* Re- 
volt of the Tartars," those pages are tlie best. They are 
pre-eminently paragraphs 38 and 41, but also detached 
passages throughout the piece; for instance, pages 42,43. 
This style, though it is individual enougli to give De 
Quincey's boast some countenance, nevertheless smacks of 
his time. Professor Masson^ thinks it smacks also of Jean 
Paul Richter. 

Such a style expresses itself naturally in figures. Note 
the metaphor of the worm and the behemoth (11 10), of 
the unrolling of a great scroll (30 7), and compare others; 
but note also that even where there are no explicit figures 
such as metaphors or similes, there is an habitual sugges- 
tion of images. The passage from 32 33 to 33 2 shows 
how De Quincey, so to speak, thought in images. 

Combined with this imao^inative and fio^urative cast it is 
somewhat surprising to find, what is equally characteristic 
of De Quincey, a peculiarly fine precision. The only way 
to appreciate this justly is to scrutinize his words, to test 
them with the aid of a good dictionary. In the notes 
many words are marked for such examination. Often the 
nicety of a phrase will be found to reside in the suggestion 
of its etymology. De Quincey felt this keenly. In fact, 
he went even to the extent of pedantry in refining upon 
derivatives from Greek and Latin. 

Greek and Latin derivatives, especially the latter, pre- 
dominate in his writing, partly because he was fond of the 
classics, partly because he preferred dignified and sonorous 
phrases, mainly because he insisted upon elegant precision. 
Examine, for instance, the proportion of classical deriva- 
tives in paragraphs 2 and 3, express some of the sentences 
in native words, and note the different effect. It will be 
simpler, more direct; but simplicity and directness are not 
^ Life of De Quincey, p. 192. 



xxxviii INTRODUCTION 

in De Quincey's aim or habit. Even these " barbarous and 
semi-humanised " Kalmucks are made to express themselves 
with the same choiceness and dignity. Everybody in the 
story talks like De Quincey, and De Quincey always talks 
like himself. And instead of judging the work by a 
standard he would not have owned, instead of dwelling 
on those aspects in which it is inferior alike to the latest 
pamphlet of special research and the latest dialect story, it 
is much more profitable to keep in mind his ideal of elegant 
precision subservient to a high imagination, and to observe 
how nearly that ideal was attained. 



SUGGESTIONS FOR TEACHERS 

The list of books in Appendix A is intended for such ^ 
teachers as wish to make more than a superficial examina- 
tion of the historical basis. Appendices B and C are 
intended for the student also; but these and all the rest of 
the critical apparatus should be postponed until the essay 
has been carefully read. 

For the life of De Quincey nothing should be allowed 
to take the place of De Quincey's own records, especially 
since he never wrote so well as when he wrote of himself. 
The briefest, most orderly, most convenient biography is 
that by Leslie Stephen in the '' Dictionary of National 
Biography." Professor Masson's biography in the Eng- 
lish Men of Letters Series (Harper and Brothers) con- 
tains a compact body of valuable criticism. The " Life of 
De Quincey " by H. A. Page (2 vols., Xew York, 1877) 
contains many interesting letters, but is ill put together. 
Mr. Page, this time under his proper name, Dr. Alex- 
ander H. Japp, has collected two more volumes of letters 
and comment under the title of " De Quincey Memo- 
rials" (United States Book Co., 1891). The collection 
corrects one's impressions of De Quincey in minor de- 
tails, but hardly adds anything to the total estimate. Mr. 
James Hogg has collected in one volume the most in- 
teresting published reminiscences of De Quincey, and has 
added some equally interesting reminiscences of his own 
(" De Quincey and his Friends": London, 1895). This 
collection relates mainly to the Edinburgh period. It con- 
tains, among less important matter, Woodhouse's notes of 
conversations with De Quincey, John Hill Burton's chap- 



xl SUGGESTIONS FOR TEACHERS 

ter entitled '* Pa23averms " in "The Book Hunter," and 
the recollections of Findla}', Colin Rae-Brown, Jacox, and 
James Payn. Dr. Shadworth Hodgson's '' The Genius of 
De Quincey," is also reprinted from " Outcast Essays." 

The most careful and specific examination of the style 
of De Quincey will be found in Minto's '' Manual of Eng- 
lish Prose Literature " (Ginn and Co.), part i., chapter i. 
Among Professor Masson's earlier essays is one on De 
Quincey's "impassioned prose" ("Wordsworth, Shelles^ 
Keats, and Other Essays," p. 257). Finally, Professor 
Masson's new edition of De Quincey's works (Edinburgh: 
Adam and Charles Black) should be consulted freely. 

Believing that the study of literature in preparatory 
schools may be orderly and definite without losing either 
its value or its interest, the editor has grouped his remarks 
on the style under specific headings. The purpose of this 
definiteness is, not to insist on certain terms, nor to exclude 
other sorts of comment. It aims simply to help the stu- 
dent to order his impressions, and to suggest to the teacher 
a method. The terms there used are at the basis of Professor 
AVendell's " English Composition; " they appear also in the 
text-books of Professors Genung,^ Hill, and Carpenter; and, 
finally, they are themselves suggestive. For all these 
reasons they seem to offer one convenient means toward 
combining the study of literature with the study of rheto- 
ric, the examination of models with the actual practice 
in composition. 

Another method of combination is the obvious one of 
making the pupil write essays about the book he is reading. 
It is customary, for instance, to require summaries of the 
pieces read, and compositions on their various phases. In 
this sort of work two methods are useful — first, to set top- 
ics for detached paragraphs (De Quincey's Object in 
Writing the Piece, De Quincey's Peculiar Habits, The Plan 
» For emphasis Professor Genung's terra is projjoii ion. 



SUGGESTIONS FOR TEACHERS xli 

of Zebek Dorclii, The Relations of the Kalmucks to Russia, 
etc.), insisting oq a fair degree of unity in each paragraph; 
second, to inculcate habits of order by furnishing at the 
beginning plans for the more extended essays. Take a 
single instance : 
De Quinceifs Knowledge of the Classics. 

1. The training of an English boy in Latin and Greek 
is long and thorough. 

2. In De Quincey's case this training was made still 
more effective by his bent in that direction. 

3. The value of such training, in general, is — etc. 

4. In De Quincey's writing this training appears — etc. 

The putting of such paragraph summaries into sen- 
tences, instead of mere topical headings, tends to induce 
paragraph unity. Care in expressing the connection be- 
tween these sentences induces coherence in the whole com- 
position. ^ After setting two or three such plans, the 
teacher may call upon the pupil to provide his own. 

But if, instead of writing only about this piece, the 
student should try his own hand at scenes from the battle 
of Marathon, or the march of Hannibal, or some of the 
famous expeditions referred to in paragraph 20, and "re- 
quired " for entrance examinations, the practice might be 
at least equally valuable. At any rate, he might then 
cease to think that his composition must be about litera- 
ture, must be critical, and might discover its vital rela- 
tion to his other studies. 

Every pupil of any imagination will be interested in De 
Quincey's " Confessions," and the kindred pieces of remi- 
niscence. Read selections from these pieces in class, and 
encourage further reading at home.'^ That will do quite 

' This method is followed in the paragraph summaries of the notes. 

^ The English Mail Coach is published in Cassell's National Li- 
brary (paper) at ten cents, together with JIurder Considered as One 
of the Fine Arfs. The latter is neither so useful nor so interesting. 



xlii SUGGESTIONS FOR TEACHERS 

as much in some cases as specific study. Moreover, these 
are more characteristic of De Quincey aud better as litera- 
ture than the " Revolt of the Tartars." And, finally, it 
is not necessary to apply the study of a piece of literature 
to the study of composition. For further suggestions the 
teacher is referred to the preceding pages on style and to 
the notes. 



CHRONOLOOIUAL TABLE 



xliii 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 



(Compiled from " Lowndes's Bibliographer's Mamial," The Dictionary of National 
Biography, Ryland's "Chronological Outlines of English Literature,'" and Whit- 
comb's " Chronological Outlines of American Literature.") 



Life op De Quince y. 



1785. De Quincey born. 



1796. Bath Grammar School 



1800. Winlvfield School. 

Visit to Ireland with 
Lord Westport, and 
to Lady Carbery at 
Laxton. 

1801. Manchester Grammar 

School. 

1802. Escape from school. 

Wanderings in 
Wales and London. 

1803. Oxford : Worcester 

College. 



1807. Meeting with Cole- 

ridge and Words- 
worth. 

1808. London, brief law 

studies. 

1809. Grasmere. 



Contemporary 
Literature. 



17^ 



Byron born. 



Burke, Reflections on 
the Revolution in 
France. 

Shelley born. 



1792 

1795. Carlyle and Keats born 



Wordsworth and Cole- 
ridge, Lyrical Bal- 



1800. Macaulay born. 



1805. 
1806. 



1810. 
1811. 
1812. 



Scott, Lay of the Last 

Minstrel. 
Coleridge, Christabel. 



Scott, The Lady of the 

Lake. 
Jane Austen, Sense 

and Sensibility. 
Byron, Childe Harold 

'(i. and ii.). 



1814. Scott, Waverley. 



Contemporary History, 



1788. United States Con- 

stitution ratified 
by eleven States. 

1789. Washington Presi- 

dent. Opening of 
the French Revo- 
lution. 



Whitney invented 
the cotton-gin. 



1797. John Adams Presi 
dent. 



1800. Union of Great Bri- 
tain and Ireland. 



1801. Jefferson President. 

1803. Louisiana Purchase. 

1804. Napoleon Emperor. 



1809. Madison President. 



1812-14. War between 
England and the 
Unfted States. 



xliv 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE 

CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE.- Continued. 



Life of De Quincet. 



1816. Married Margaret 
Simpson. 

1819. Studies in political 
economy. Editor of 
the Westmoreland 
Gazette. 



1821. London. Confessions 
of an English Opi- 
u m - Ea ter* and 
translations from 
Richter in The Lon- 
don Magazine. 
Other articles (1823- 
1824) : Letters to a 
Young Man ivhose 
Education has been 
Neglected, Rosicru- 
cians and Freema- 
sons, Dialogues of 
Three Templar's. 



1826. Translation of Less 

ing's LaocoOn. 

1827. Murder Considered as 

one of the Fine Arts 
(in Blackwood's 
Edinburgh Maga- 
zine). 
1828-33. Edinburgh. Arti- 
cles in Btackwood : 
Toilette of a Hebrew 
Lady, Dr. Parr and 
his Contempoi^anes, 
The Caesars (a se- 
ries), Charlemagne, 
Traditions of the 
EafMns. 



Contemporary 
Literature. 



1815. 



1816. 



1818. 
1819. 



1820. 



Wordsworth, The 
White Doe of Ryl- 
stone. 

Shelley, Alastor. 

Keats, Endymion. 
Byron, Don Juan (i. 
'and ii.). Irving,+ 
The Sketch-Book. 

Keats, Lamia, and 
other poems. Scott, 
Ivanhoe. Shelley, 
Prometheus Un- 
bound. 



1822. 
1824. 



1825. 



1827. 



Lamb, Essays of Elia 
Landor, Imaginary 

Conversations (i.). 
Macanlay, Essay on 

Milton. 



Alfred and Charles 
Tennyson, Poems 



1828. Irving,t Columbus. 



Tennyson, Poems 
Chiefly Lyrical. 



Contemporary History. 



1815. 



Battle of Waterloo. 

Stevenson's first 
locomotive. 



1819. Purchase of Florida. 
Steamers began to 
cross the Atlantic. 



1821. War of Grecian in- 
dependence. 



1825. J. Q. Adams Presi- 
dent. 



1829. Jackson President. 

Catholic Emanci- 
pation Act in Eng- 
land. 

1830. William IV. King of 

England. 



* The titles of De Quincey's works are indicated by italics, 
t American authors are thus indicated. 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE 

CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE.- Continued. 



xlv 



Life of De Quincey. 



1832. Klosterheim (a novel) 



1834-40. Autobiographic 
sketches iu Taifs 
Edinburgh Maga 



1837. Mrs. De Quincey died 
Skakspere, Pope (in 
Encyclopifidia Bri 
tannica). Flight of 
A Tartar Tribe 
(in Blackwood). 



1840. Cottage (Mavis Bush) 
at Lasswade. 

1840-46. Articles in Black- 
wood : The Essenes, 
Style and Rhetoric, 
Homer and tlie IIo- 
meridoe, Berkeley 
and Idealism, Ci- 
cero, Benjamin of 
Tudela, The Logic 
of Political Econo- 
my, Suspiria de 
Prqfundis. 

1841-43. Glksgow, long vis- 
its at the houses of 
Professor Lushing- 
ton and Professor 
Nichol. 



1847. Glasgow again, in 
lodgings, to assist in 
establishing the new- 
North British Daily 
Mail and the trans- 
ferred Taifs Maga- 
zine. The Spanish 
Military Nun, Joan 
of Arc. 



Contemporary 
Literature. 



1831. Poe,t Poems. Whit- 
tier, + Legends of 
New England. 



Carlyle, Sartor Resar 
tus. Browning, 
Pauline. 



Dickens, Pickwick 
Holmes,+ Poems. 

Carlyle, The French 
Revolution. Pres- 
cott,t Ferdinand 
and Isabella. Haw- 
thorne,t Tvvice-Told 
Tales. 

Dickens, Nicholas 
Nickleby. 

Poe,t Tales of the 
Grotesque and Ara 
besque. 



1837 



1838. 
1840. 



1841. 



1843. 



1845. 



1847. 



Browning, Pippa 
Passes. Carlyle, He- 
roes and Hero-Wor- 
ship. Emerson, t 
Essays. 

Macaulay, Essays. 
Ruskin, Modern 
Painters (i.). 



Contemporary History . 



1832. English Reform Bil 



1883. Abolition of slavery 
throughout the 
British Empire. 



1837. Van Buren Presi- 
dent. Victoria 
Queen of Eng- 
land. 



1841. Harrison President. 
Tyler President. 



1844. Morse telegraph. 
Carlyle, Cromwell. 1845. Polk President. 

Poe,t The Raven and 1845-48. War between the 

Other Poems. l United States and 

I Mexico. 

Charlotte Bronte, Janei 

Eyre. Tennyson,! 

The Princess. 

Thackeray, Vanity 

Fair. Longfellow, t 

Evangeline. 



xlvi 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE 
CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. - Concluded. 



Life of De Quincey. 



1848-59. Edinburgh, most of 
the time in lodgings. 

1849. The English Ilail 
Coach. 



1851-52. American collective 
edition of De Quin- 
cev's works (J. T. 
Fields). 



1853. English collective edi- 
tion (James Hogg) 
begun. 



1857. Visit to his eldest 
daughter, Mrs. 
Craig, in Ireland. 



1859. Death, December 8th. 



Contemporary 
Literature. 



1848. Macaulay, History of 
England (i. and ii.). 
Lowell,t A Fable for 
Critics. 

1850. Tennyson, In Memo- 
riam. Hawthorne,t 
The Scarlet Letter. 



1854. Thoreau,t Walden. 
1856. Motley,t The Rise of 
the Dutch Republic. 



1858. Tennyson, Idylls of the 

King. 

1859. George Eliot, Adam 

Beae. George Mere- 
dith, Richard Fev- 
erel. 



Contemporary History. 



1848. 



1849. 
1850. 



1852. 
185.3. 



Second French Re- 
public. Gold dis- 
covered in Cali- 
fornia. 

Taylor President. 

Fillmore President. 



Napoleon III. Em- 
peror. 
Pierce President. 



1854. Crimean War. 



1857' 



1859. 



Buchanan President. 
The Dred Scott 
decision. 



Darwin published 
The Origin of Spe- 
cies. John Brown's 
raid on Harper's 
Ferry. 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS 



PERSONS OF THE STORY.* 

OuBACHA, Khan of the Kalmucks. 

Zebek-Dorcht, a Kalmuck chief, instigator of the flight. 

Erempel, father -in-laiv to Zehek-Dorchi, \ . -n r, i i 

^ I conspirators with Zeoek. 

LoosANG-DcHALTZAN, Gra7id Lama of r Dorchi 



the Volga Kalmucks, 
Weseloff, a Russian gentleman, prisoner among the Kalmucks. 
Elizabeth Petrowna, Empress of Russia. 
Catherine II. , Empress of Russia, successor to Elizabeth. 
KiEN Long, Emperor of China. 
Beketoff, Russian Governor of Astrakhan. 
KiCHiNSKOi, Russian Commissioner to the Volga Kalmucks. 
Traubenberg, general in command of the Russian pursuit. 
* Inserted by the editor. 



KEVOLT OF THE TARTARS 

OR, FLIGHT OF THE KALMUCK KHAN AND HIS 

PEOPLE FROM THE RUSSIAN TERRITORIES 

TO THE FRONTIERS OF CHINA 

1. There is no great event in modern history, or, per- 
haps it may be said more broadly, none in all history, 
from its earliest records, less generally known, or more 
striking to the imagination, than the flight eastwards of 
a principal Tartar nation across the boundless steppes of 5 
Asia in the latter half of the last century. The ter- 
minus a quo of this flight, and the terminus ad quern, are 
equally magnificent; the mightiest of Christian thrones 
being the one, the mightiest of Pagan the other. And 
the grandeur of these two terminal objects is harmoni- 10 
ously supported by the romantic circumstances of the 
flight. In the abruptness of its commencement, and 
the fierce velocity of its execution, we read the wild 
barbax'ic character of those who conducted the move- 
ment. In the unity of purpose connecting this myriad 15 
of wills, and in the blind but unerring aim at a mark 
so remote, there is something which recalls to the mind 
those almighty instincts that propel the migrations of the 
swallow and the leeming, or the life-withering marches 
of the locust. Then, again, in the gloomy vengeance 30 
of Eussia and her vast artillery, which hung upon the 
rear and the skirts of tlie fugitive vassals, we are re- 
minded of Miltonic imao^es — such, for instance, as that 



4 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS 

of the solitary hand pursuing through desert spaces and 
through ancient chaos a rebellious host, and overtaking 
with volleying thunders those who believed themselves 
already within the security of darkness and of distance. 
5 2. I shall have occasion, farther on, to compare this 
event with other great national catastrophes as to the 
magnitude of the suffering. But it may also challenge 
a comparison with similar events under another relation, 
viz., as to its dramatic capabilities. Few cases, perhaps, 

10 in romance or history, can sustain a close collation with 
this as to the comj)lexity of its separate interests. fThe 
great outline of the enterprise, taken in connection with 
the operative motives, hidden or avowed, and the reli- 
gious sanctions under which it was pursued, give to the 

15 case a triple characterj 1st, that of a conspiracy, with 
as close a unity in the incidents, and as much of a per- 
sonal interest in the moving characters, with fine dra- 
matic contrasts, as belongs to " Venice Preserved," or to 
the " Fiesco " of Schiller; 2dly, that of a great military 

20 expeclition, offering the same romantic features of vast 
distances to be traversed, vast reverses to be sustained, 
untried routes, enemies obscurely ascertained, and hard- 
ships too vaguely prefigured, which mark the Egyptian 
expedition of Cambyses — which mark the anabasis of 

25 the younger Cyrus, and the subsequent retreat of the 
ten thousand — which mark the Parthian expeditions of 
the Eomans, especially those of Crassus and Julian — or 
(as more disastrous than any of them, and, in point of 
space as well as in amount of forces, more extensive) the 

30 Russian anabasis and katabasis of Napoleon; 3dly, that 
of a religious Exodus, authorised by an oracle venerated 
throughout many nations of Asia, an Exodus, there- 
fore, in so far resembling the great Scriptural Exodus of 
the Israelites, under Moses and Joshua, as well as in the 

35 very peculiar distinction of carrying along with them 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS 5 

their entire families, women, children, slaves, their herds 
of cattle and of sheep, their horses and their camels. 

3. [This triple character of the enterprise naturally 
invests it with a more comprehensive interest. , But the 
dramatic interest which I have ascribed to it, or its fit- 5 
ness for a stage representation, depends partly upon the 
marked variety and the strength of the personal agencies 
concerned, and partly upon the succession of scenical 
situations. Even the steppes, the camels, the tents, the 
snowy and the sandy deserts, are not beyond the scale of 10 
our modern representative powers, as often called into 
action in the theatres both of Paris and London; and 
the series of situations unfolded, — beginning with the 
general conflagration on the Wolga — passing thence to 
the disastrous scenes of the flight (as it literally was in 15 
its commencement) — to the Tartar siege of the Russian 
fortress Koulagina — the bloody engagement with the 
Cossacks in the mountain passes at Ouchim — the sur- 
prisal by the Bashkirs, and the advanced posts of the 
Russian army at Torgau — the private conspiracy at this 20 
point against the Khan — the long succession of running 
fights — the parting massacres at the Lake of Tengis 
under the eyes of the Chinese — and, finally, the tragical 
retribution to Zebek-Dorchi at the hunting lodge of the 
Chinese Emj^eror; — all these situations communicate a 25 
scenical animation to the wild romance, if treated dra- 
matically; whilst a higher and a philosophic interest 
belongs to it as a case of authentic history, commemorat- 
ing a great revolution for good and for evil in the for- 
tunes of a whole people — a people semi-barbarous, but 30 
simple-hearted, and of ancient descent. \ 

4. lOn the 21st of January, 1761, the young Prince 
Oubacha assumed the sceptre of the Kalmucks upon the 
death of his father. Some part of the power attached to 



6 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS 

this dignity he had already wielded since his fourteenth 
year, in quality of Vice-Khan, hy the express appoint- 
ment and with the avowed support of the Russian Gov- 
ernment. He was now about eighteen years of age, 
5 amiable in his personal character, and not without title^^ 
to respect in his public character as a sovereign prince. 
In times more peaceable, and amongst a people more en- 
tirely civilised, or more humanised by religion, it is even 
probable that he might have discharged his high duties 

10 with considerable distinction. But his lot was thrown 
upon stormy times, and a most difficult crisis amongst 
tribes whose native ferocity was exasperated by debasing 
forms of superstition, and by a nationality as well as an 
inflated conceit of their own merit absolutely unpar- 

15 alleled, whilst the circumstances of their hard and trying 
position under the jealous surveillance of an irresistible 
lord paramount, in the person of tlie Russian Czar, 
gave a fiercer edge to the natural unamiableness of the 
Kalmuck disposition, and irritated its gloomier qualities 

20 into action under the restless impulses of suspicion and 
permanent distrust. No prince could hope for a cordial 
allegiance from his subjects or a peaceful reign under the 
circumstances of the case; for the dilemma in which a 
Kalmuck ruler stood at present was of this nature: want- 

25 ing the sanction and support of the Czar, he was inevitably 
too weak from without to command confidence from his 
subjects, or resistance to his competitors; on the other 
hand, ^uith this kind of support, and deriving his title 
in any degree from the favour of the Imperial Court, he 

30 became almost in that extent an object of hatred at 
home, and within the whole compass of his own terri- 
tory. He was at once an object of hatred for the past, 
being a living monument of national independence igno- 
miniously surrendered, and an object of jealousy for the 

35 future, as one who had already advertised himself to be 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS 7 

a fitting tool for the ultimate purposes (whatsoever those 
might prove to be) of the Russian Court. Coming him- 
self to the Kalmuck sceptre under the heaviest weight 
of prejudice from the unfortunate circumstances of his 
position, it might have been expected that Oiibacha 5 
would have been pre-eminently an object of detestation; 
for, besides his known dependence upon the Cabinet of 
St. Petersburg, the direct line of succession had been 
set aside, and the principle of inheritance violently sus- 
pended, in favour of his own father, so recently as nine- 10 
teen years before the era of his own accession, conse- 
quently within the lively remembrance of the existing 
generation. He therefore, almost equally with his father, 
stood within the full current of the national prejudices, 
and might have anticipated the most pointed hostility. 15 
But it was not so: such are the caprices in human affairs 
that he was even, in a moderate sense, popular — a bene- 
fit which bore the more cheering aspect, and the prom 
ises of permanence, inasmuch as he owed it exclusively 
to his personal qualities of kindness and affability, as 20 
well as to the beneficence of his government. On the 
other hand, to balance this unlooked-for prosperity at 
the outset of his reign, he met with a rival in popular 
favour — almost a competitor — in the person of Zebek 
Dorclii, a prince with considerable pretensions to the 25 
throne, and perhaps, it might be said, with equal pre- 
tensions. Zebek-Dorchi was a direct descendant of the 
same royal house as himself, through a different branch. 
On public grounds, his claim stood, perhaps, on a footing 
equally good with that of Oubacha, whilst his personal 30 
qualities, even in those aspects wdiich seemed to a philo- 
sophical observer most odious and repulsive, promised 
the most effectual aid ^to the dark purposes of an in- 
triguer or a conspirator, and were generally fitted to 
win a popular support precisely in those points where 35 



8 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS 

Oubacha Avas most defective. He was mucli sujoerior in 
external appearance to his rival on the throne, and so 
far better qualified to win the good opinion of a semi- 
barbarous peo23le; whilst his dark intellectual qualities 
5 of Machiavelian dissimulation, profound hypocrisy, and 
joerfidy which knew no touch of remorse, were admir- 
ably calculated to sustain any ground which he might 
w^in from the simple-hearted people with whom he had 
to deal, and from the frank carelessness of his uncon- 

10 scions competitor. 

5. At the very outset of his treacherous career, Zebek- 
Dorclii was sagacious enough to perceive that nothing 
could be gained by open declaration of hostility to the 
reigning prince : the choice had been a deliberate act on 

15 the part of Eussia, and Elizabeth Petrowna was not the 
person to recall her own favours with levity, or upon 
slight grounds. Openly, therefore, to have declared 
his enmity towards his relative on the throne could have 
had no effect but that of arming suspicions against his 

30 own ulterior purposes in a quarter where it was most 
essential to his interest that, for the present, all suspicion 
should be hoodwinked. (Accordingly, after much medi- 
tation, the course he took for opening his snares was 
this: — He raised a rumour that his own life was in 

25 danger from the plots of several Saissang (that is, Kal- 
muck nobles), who were leagued together, under an 
oath, to assassinate him-3)and immediately after, assum- 
ing a well-counterfeited alarm, he fled to Tcherkask, fol- 
lowed by sixty-five tents. From this place he kept up a 

30 correspondence with the Imperial Court; and, by way 
of soliciting his cause more effectually, he soon repaired 
in person to St. Petersburg. Once admitted to personal 
conferences with the cabinet, he found no difficulty in 
winning over the Russian counsels to a concurrence with 

35 some of his political views, and thus covertly introduc- 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS 9 

ing the point of that wedge which was finally to accom- 
plish his purposes. In particular, he persuaded the 
Eussian Government to make a very important altera- 
tion in the constitution of the Kalmuck State Council, 
which in effect re-organised the whole political condition 5 
of the state, and disturbed the balance of power as pre- 
viously adjusted. Of this council — in the Kalmuck lan- 
guage called Sarga — there were eight members, called 
Sargatchi; and hitherto it. had been the custom that 
these eight members should be entirely subordinate to 10 
the Khan ; holding, in fact, the ministerial character of 
secretaries and assistants, but in no respect acting as 
co-ordinate authorities. That had produced some incon- 
veniences in former reigns; and it was easy for Zebek- 
Dorchi to point the jealousy of the Eussian Court to 15 
others more serious, which might arise in future circum- 
stances of war or other contingencies. It was resolved, 
therefore, to place the Sargatchi henceforwards on a foot- 
ing of perfect independence, and therefore (as regarded 
responsibility) on a footing of equality with the Khan. 20 
Their independence, however, had respect only to their 
own sovereign; for towards Eussia they were placed in 
a new attitude of direct duty and accountability, by the 
creation in their favour of small pensions (300 roubles a- 
year), which, however, to a Kalmuck of that day were 25 
more considerable than might be supposed, and had a 
farther value as marks of honorary distinction emanating 
from a great empress. Thus far the purposes of Zebek- 
Dorchi were served effectually for the moment: but, 
apparently, it was only for the moment; since, in the 30 
further development of his plots, this very dependency 
upon Eussian influence would be the most serious 
obstacle in his way. There was, however, another point 
carried which outweighed all inferior considerations, as 
it gave him a power of setting aside discretionally what- 35 



10 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS 

soever should arise to disturb his plots: he was himself 
appointed President and Controller of the Sargatchi. 
The Russian Court had been aware of his high preten- 
sions by birtli, and hoped by this promotion to satisfy 
5 the ambition wdiich, in some degree, was acknowledged 
to be a reasonable passion for any man occupying his 
situation. 

6. Having thus completely blindfolded the Cabinet of 
Russia, Zebek-Dorchi ]3roceeded in his new character to 

10 fulfil his political mission with the Khan of the Kal- 
mucks. So artfully did he j^i'epai'e the road for his 
favourable reception at the court of this prince, that he 
was at once and universally welcomed as a benefactor. 
The 2)ensions of the counsellors Avere so much additional 

15 wealth poured into the Tartar exchequer; as to the ties 
of dependency thus created, experience had not yet 
enlightened these simple tribes as to that result. And 
that he himself should be the chief of these mercenary 
counsellors was so far from being charged upon Zebek 

20 as any offence or any ground of suspicion, that his 
relative the Khan returned him hearty thanks for his 
services, under the belief that he could have accepted 
this appointment only with a view to keep out other 
and more unwelcome pretenders, who would not have 

25 had the same motives of consanguinity or friendship 
for executing its duties in a spirit of kindness to the 
Kalmucks. The first use which he made of his new 
functions about the Khan's j^erson was to attack the 
Court of Russia, by a romantic villainy not easy to be 

30 credited, for those very acts of interference with the 
council which he himself had prompted."; This was a 
dangerous step : but it was indispensable to his further 
advance upon the gloomy path which he had traced out 
for himself. A triple vengeance was what he medi- 

35tated: 1. upon the Russian Cabinet for having under- 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS H 

valued his own pretensions to tlie throne; 2. upon his 
amiable rival for having supplanted him; and, 3. upon 
all those of the nobility who had manifested their sense 
of his weakness by their neglect, or their sense of his 
perfidious character by their suspicions. Here was a 5 
colossal outline of wickedness; and by one in his situa- 
tion, feeble (as it might seem) for the accomplishment of 
its humblest parts, how Avas the total edifice to be reared 
in its comprehensive grandeur ? He, a worm as he was, 
could he venture to assail the mighty behemoth of Mus- 10 
covy, the potentate who counted three hundred languages 
around the footsteps of his throne, and from whose 
''lion ramp" recoiled alike "baptized and infidel" — 
Christendom on the one side, strong by her intellect 
and her organisation, and the '^ Barbaric East" on the 15 
other, with her unnumbered numbers ? The match was 
a monstrous one; but in its very monstrosity there lay 
this germ of encouragement, that it could not be suc- 
pected. The very hopelessness of the scheme grounded 
his hope, and he resolved to execute a vengeance which 20 
should involve, as it were, in the unity of a well-laid 
tragic fable, all whom he judged to be his enemies. 
That vengeance lay in detaching from the Russian 
Empire the whole Kalmuck nation, and breaking up 
that system of intercourse which had thus far been 35 
beneficial to both. This last was a consideration which 
moved him but little. True it was, that Russia to the 
Kalmucks had secured lands and extensive pasturage; 
true it was, that the Kalmucks reciprocally to Russia 
had furnished a powerful cavalry. But the latter loss 30 
would be part of his triumph, and the former might be 
more than compensated in other climates under other 
sovereigns. Here was a scheme which, in its final 
accomplishment, would avenge him bitterly on the 
Czarina, and in the course of its accomplishment might 35 



12 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS 

furnish him with ample occasions for removing his 
other enemies. It may be readily supposed, indeed, 
that he who could deliberately raise his eyes to the Rus- 
sian autocrat as an antagonist in single duel with him- 
5 self Avas not likely to feel much anxiety about Kalmuck 
enemies of whatever rank. He took his resolution, 
therefore, sternly and irrevocably to eUect this astonish- 
ing translation of an ancient people across the pathless 
deserts of Central Asia, intersected continually by rapid 

10 rivers, rarely furnished with bridges, and of which the 
fords were known only to those who might think it for 
their interest to conceal them, through many nations in- 
hospitable or hostile; frost and snow around them (from 
the necessity of commencing their flight in winter), 

15 famine in their front, and the sabre, or even the artil- 
lery of an offended and mighty empress, hanging upon 
their rear for thousands of miles. But Avhat was to be 
their final mark — the port of shelter after so fearful 
a course of wandering? Two things were evident: it 

20 must be some power at a great distance from Eussia, so 
as to make return even in that view hopeless; and it 
must be a power of sufficient rank to insure them pro- 
tection from any hostile efforts on the part of the 
Czarina for reclaiming them, or for chastising their 

25 revolt. Both conditions were united obviously in the 
person of Kien Long, the reigning Emperor of China, 
who was further recommended to them by his respect 
for the head of their religion. To China, therefore, 
and, as their first rendezvous, to the shadow of the 

30 great Chinese Wall, it was settled by Zebek that they 
sliould direct their flight. 

7. Next came the question of time — ^uhen should the 
flight commence ? and, finally, the more delicate question 
as to the choice of accomplices^ To extend the knowl- 

35 edge of the conspiracy too far was to insure its betrayal 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS 13 

to the Russian Government. Yet, at some stage of the 
preparations, it was evident that a very extensive confi- 
dence must be made, because in no other way could the 
mass of the Kalmuck population be persuaded to furnish 
their families with the requisite equipments for so long a 5 
migration. This critical step, however, it was resolved to 
defer up to the latest possible moment, and, at all events, 
to make no general communication on the subject until 
the time of departure should be definitely settled. In 
the meantime, Zebek admitted only three persons to 10 
his confidence; of whom Oubacha, the reigning prince, 
was almost necessarily one; but him, from his yielding 
and somewhat feeble character, he viewed rather in the 
light of a tool than as one of his active accomplices. 
Those whom (if anybody) he admitted to an unreserved 15 
participation in his counsels were two only: the great 
Lama among the Kalmucks, and his own father-in-law, 
Erempel, a ruling prince of some tribe in the neighbour- 
hood of the Caspian Sea, recommended to his favour, 
not BO much by any strength of talent corresponding 20 
to the occasion, as by his blind devotion to himself, and 
his passionate anxiety to promote the elevation of his 
daughter and son-in-law to the throne of the sovereign 
prince. A titular prince Zebek already was: but this 
dignity, without the substantial accompaniment of a 25 
sceptre, seemed but an empty sound to both of these 
ambitious rebels. The other accomplice, whose name 
was Loosan-Dchaltzan, and whose rank was that of 
Lama, or Kalmuck pontiff, was a person of far more 
distinguished pretensions; he had something of the 30 
same gloomy and terrific pride which marked the 
character of Zebek himself, manifesting also the same 
energy, accompanied by the same unfaltering cruelty, 
and a natural facility of dissimulation even more pro- 
found. It was Iw this man that the other question was 35 



14 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS 

settled, as to the time for giving effect to their designs. 
His own pontifical character had snggested to him 
that, in order to strengthen their influence with the 
vast mob of simj)le-minded men whom they were to 
5 lead into a howling wilderness, after persuading them to 
lay desolate their own ancient hearths, it was indispens- 
able that tliey should be able, in cases of extremity, to 
plead the express sanction of God for their entire enter- 
prise. This conld only be done by addressing themselves 

10 to the great head of their religion, the Dalai-Lama of 
Tibet. Him they easily persnaded to countenance their 
schemes : and an oracle was delivered solemnly at Tibet, 
to the effect that no ultimate prosperity would attend 
this great Exodus unless it were pursued through the 

15 years of the tiger and the hare. Now, the Kalmuck 
custom is to distinguish their years by attaching to 
each a denomination taken from one of twelve animals, 
the exact order of succession being absolutely fixed, so 
that the cycle revolves of course through a period of 

20 a dozen years. Consequently, if the approaching year 
of the tiger were suffered to escape them, in that 
case the expedition must be delayed for twelve years 
more, within which |)eriod, even were no other unfa- 
vourable changes to arise, it was pretty Avell foreseen 

25 tlict the Russian Government would take the most 
effectual means for bridling their vagrant propensities 
by a ring-fence of forts or military posts; to say noth- 
ing of the still readier plan for securing their fidelity 
(a plan already talked of in all quarters) by exacting a 

30 large body of hostages selected from the families of the 
most influential nobles. On these cogent considerations, 
it. was solemnly determined that this terrific experiment 
should be made in the next year of the tiger, which 
happened to fall upon the Christian year 1771. With 

35 respect to tlie month, there was, unhappily for the 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS 15 

Kalmucks, even less latitude allowed to tlieir choice 
tliaii with respect to the year. It was absolutely neces- 
sary, or it was thought so, that the different divisions of 
the nation which pastured their flocks on both banks of 
tlie Wolga should have the means of effecting an instan- 5 
taneous junction; because the danger of being inter- 
cepted by flying columns of the imperial armies was 
precisely the greatest at the outset. Now, from the 
want of bridges, or sufficient river craft for transport- 
ing so vast a body of men, the sole means which could 10 
be depended upon (especially where so many women, 
children, and camels were concerned) was ice : and this, 
in a state of sufficient firmness, could not be absolutely 
counted upon before the month of January. Hence 
it happened that this astonishing Exodus of a whole 15 
nation, before so much as a whisper of the design had 
begun to circulate amongst those whom it most inter- 
ested, before it was even suspected that any man's 
wishes pointed in that direction, had been definitively 
appointed for January of the year 1771. And almost 20 
up to the Christmas of 1770 the poor sim2:>le Kalmuck 
herdsmen and their families were going nightly to their 
peaceful beds, without even dreaming that the fat had 
already gone forth from their rulers which consigned 
those quiet abodes, together with the peace and comfort 25 
which reigned within them, to a withering desolation, 
now close at hand. 

8. Meantime war raged on a great scale between 
Russia and the Sultan ; and, until the time arrived 
for throwing off their vassalage, it was necessary that 30 
Oubacha should contribute his usual contingent of 
martial aid. Nay, it had unfortunately become prudent 
that he should contribute much more than his usual aid. 
Human experience gives ample evidence that in some 
mysterious and unaccountable Avay no great design is 35 



16 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS 

ever agitated, no matter how few or how faithful may 
be the participators, but that some presentiment — some 
dim misgiving — is kindled amongst those whom it is 
chiefly important to blind. And, however it might 

'5 have happened, certain it is that already, when as yet no 
syllable of the conspiracy had been breathed to any man 
whose very existence was not staked npon its conceal- 
ment, nevertheless, some vague and uneasy jealousy had 
arisen in the Russian Cabinet as to the future schemes 

10 of the Kalmuck Khani; and very probable it is that, 
but for the war then raging, and the consequent j^ru- 
dence of conciliating a very important vassal, or, at least, 
of abstaining from what would powerfully alienate him, 
even at that moment such measures would have been 

15 adopted as must for ever have intercepted the Kalmuck 
schemes. Slight as were the jealousies of the Imjoerial 
Court, they had not escaped the Machiavelian eyes of 
Zebek and the Lama. And under their guidance Ou- 
bacha, bending to the circumstances of the moment, 

20 and meeting the jealousy of the Eussian Court with 
a policy corresponding to their own, strove by unusual 
zeal to efface the Czarina's unfavourable impressions. 
He enlarged the scale of his contributions, and that so 
prodigiously that he absolutely carried to head-quarters 

25 a force of 35,000 cavalry fully equipped: some go fur- 
ther, and rate the amount beyond 40,000; but the 
smaller estimate is, at all events, within the truth. 

9. AVith this magnificent array of cavalry, heavy as 
well as light, the Khan went into the field under great 

30 expectations; and these he more than realised. Having 
the good fortune to be concerned with so ill-organised 
and disorderly a description of force as that which at 
all times composed the bulk of a Turkish army, he 
carried victory along with his banners; gained many 

35 partial successes; [and at last, in a pitched battle, over- 



RKVOLT OF THE TARTARS 17 

threw the Turkish force opposed to him with a loss of 
5000 men left upon the field.) 

10. These splendid achievements seemed likely to 
operate in various ways against the impending revolt. 
Ouhacha had now a strong motive, in the martial glory 5 
acquired, for continuing his connection with the empire 
in whose service he had won it, and by whom only it 
could be fully appreciated. He was now a great marshal 
of a great empire, one of the Paladins around the 
imperial throne; in China he would be nobody, or 10 
(worse than that) a mendicant alien, prostrate at the 
feet, and soliciting the precarious alms, of a prince with 
whom he had no connection. Besides, it might reason- 
ably be expected that the Czarina, grateful for the really 
efficient aid given by the Tartar prince, would confer 15 
upon him such eminent rewards as might be sufficient 
to anchor his hopes u^Don Russia, and to wean him from 
every possible seduction. These were the obvious sug- 
gestions of prudence and good sense to every man who 
stood neutral in the case. But they were disappointed. 20 
The Czarina knew her obligations to the Khan, but she 
did not acknowledge them. Wherefore ? That is a 
mystery, perhaps never to be explained. So it was, how- 
ever. The Khan went unhonoured; no ukase ever pro- 
claimed his merits; and perhaps, had he even been abund- 25 
antly recompensed by Russia, there were others who would 
have defeated these tendencies to reconciliation. Erempel, 
Zebek, and Loosang the Lama, were pledged life-deep to 
prevent any accommodation; and their efforts were un- 
fortunately seconded by those of their deadliest enemies. 30 
In the Russian Court there were at that time some great 
nobles pre-occupied with feelings of hatred and blind 
malice towards the Kalmucks, quite as strong as any 
which the Kalmucks could harbour towards Russia, and 
not, perhaps, so well-founded. Just as much as the 35 



18 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS 

Kalmucks hated the Russian yoke, their galling assump- 
tion of authority, the marked air of disdain, as towards 
a nation of ugly, stupid, and filthy barbarians, which 
too generally marked the Russian bearing and language, 
5 but, above all, the insolent contempt, or even outrages, 
which the Russian governors or great military command- 
ants tolerated in their followers towards the barbarous 
religion and superstitious mummeries of the Kalmuck 
priesthood — precisely in that extent did the ferocity of 

10 the Russian resentment, and their wrath at seeing the 
trampled worm turn or attempt a feeble retaliation, 
re-act upon the unfortunate Kalmucks. At this crisis, 
it is probable that envy and Avounded pride, upon wit- 
nessing the splendid victories of Oubacha and Momot- 

15 bacha over the Turks and Bashkirs, contributed strength 
to the Russian irritation. And it must have been 
through the intrigues of those nobles about her person 
who chiefly smarted under these feelings that the 
Czarina could ever have lent herself to the unwise and 

20 ungrateful policy pursued at this critical period towards 
the Kalmuck Khan. That Czarina Avas no longer Eliza- 
beth Petrowna; it was Catherine II. — a princess who did 
not often err so injuriously (injuriously for herself as much 
as for others) in the measures of her government. 8he 

25 had soon ample reason for repenting of her false policy. 
Meantime, how much it must have co-operated with the 
other motives previously acting upon Oubacha in sus- 
taining his determination to revolt, and how powerfully 
it must have assisted the efforts of all the Tartar chief - 

30 tains in preparing the minds of their people to feel the 
necessity of this difficult enterprise, by arming their 
pride and their suspicions against the Russian Govern- 
ment, through the keenness of their sympathy with the 
wrongs of their insulted prince, may be readily imagined. 

35 It is a fact, and it has been confessed bv candid Russians 



RF.VOLT OF THE TARTARS 19 

themselves, when treating of this great dismembermeDt, 
that the conduct of the Russian Cabinet throughout the 
period of suspense and during the crisis of hesitation in 
the Kalmuck Council was exactly such as was most desir- 
able for the purposes of the conspirators; it Avas such, 5 
in fact, as to set the seal to all their machinations, by 
supplying distinct evidences and official vouchers for 
what could otherwise have been, at the most, matters of 
doubtful suspicion and indirect presumption. 

11. Nevertheless, in the face of all these arguments, 10 
and even allowing their weight so far as not at all to deny 
the injustice or the impolicy of the imperial ministers, 
it is contended by many persons who have reviev/ed the 
affair with a command of all the documents bearing on 
the case, more especially the letters or minutes of council 15 
subsequently discovered in the handwriting of Zebek- 
Dorchi, and the important evidence of the Russian cap- 
tive Weseloff, who was carried off by the Kalmucks in 
their flight, that beyond all doubt Oubacha was power- 
less for any^purpose of impeding or even of delaying 20 
the revolt. He himself, indeed, was under religiouc 
obligations of the most terrific solemnity never to flinch 
from the enterprise, or even to slacken in his zeal : for 
Zebek-Dorchi, distrusting the firmness of his resolution 
under any unusual pressure of alarm or difficulty, had, 25 
in the very earliest stage of the conspiracy, availed him- 
self of the Khan's well-known superstition to engage 
him, by means of previous concert with the priests and 
their head the Lama, in some dark and mysterious rites 
of consecration, terminating in oaths under such terrific 30 
sanctions as no Kalmuck would have courage to violate. 
As far, therefore, as regarded the personal share of the 
Khan in what was to come, Zebek w^as entirely at his 
ease; he knew him to be so deeply pledged by religious 
terrors to the prosecution of the conspiracy, that no lion- as 



20 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS 

ours within tlie Czarina's gift could have possibl}' shaken 
his adhesion: and then, as to threats from the same 
quarter, he knew him to be sealed against those fears by 
others of a gloomier character, and better adapted to his 
5 peculiar temperament. For Oubacha was a brave man 
as respected all bodily enemies or the dangers of human 
warfare, but was as sensitive and as timid as the most 
superstitious of old Avomen in facing the frowns of a 
priest, or under the vague anticipations of ghostly retri- 

10 butions. But, had it been otherwise, and had there been 
any reason to apprehend an unsteady demeanour on the 
23art of this prince at the approach of the critical mo- 
ment, such were the changes already effected in the 
state of their domestic politics amongst the Tartars, by 

15 the undermining arts of Zebek-Dorchi and his ally the 
Lama, that very little importance would have attached 
to that doubt. All power was now effectually lodged in 
the hands of Zebek-Dorchi. He was the true and abso- 
lute wielder of the Kalmuck sceptre; all measures of 

20 importance were submitted to his discretion; and nothing 
was finally resolved but under his dictation. This re- 
sult he had brought about, in a year or two, by means 
sufficiently simple: first of all, by availing himself of 
the prejudice in his favour, so largely diffused amongst 

25 the lowest of the Kalmucks, that his own title to the 
throne, in quality of great-grandson in a direct line from 
Ajouka, the most illustrious of all the Kalmuck Khans, 
stood upon a better basis than that of Oubaclia, who 
derived from a collateral branch; secondly, with respect 

30 to that sole advantage Avhich Oubacha possessed above 
himself in the ratification of his title, by improving this 
difference between their situations to the disadvantage of 
his competitor, as one who had not scrupled to accept 
that triumph from an alien power at the price of his 

35 independence which he himself (as he would have it 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS 21 

understood) disdained to court; thirdly, by his own tal- 
ents and address, coupled with the ferocious energy of 
his moral character; fourthly — and perhaps in an equal 
degree — by the criminal facility and good-nature of 
Oubacha; finally (which is remarkable enough, as illus- 5 
trating the character of the man), by that very new mod- 
elling of the Sarga or Privy Council which he had used 
as a principal topic of abuse and malicious insinuation 
against the Russian Government, whilst, in reality, he 
first had suggested the alteration to the Empress, and 10 
he chiefly appropriated the political advantages which it 
was fitted to yield. For, as he was himself appointed 
the chief of the Sargatchi, and as the pensions to the 
inferior Sargatchi passed through his hands, whilst in 
effect they owed their appointments to his nomination, 15 
it may be easily supposed that, whatever power existed 
in the state capable of controlling the Khan being held 
by the Sarga under its new organisation, and this body 
being completely under his influence, the final result 
w^as to throw all the functions of the state, whether 20 
nominally in the prince or in the council, substantially 
into the hands of this one man; whilst, at the same 
time, from the strict league which he maintained with 
the Lama, all the thunders of the spiritual power were 
always ready to come in aid of the magistrate, or to 35 
supply his incapacity in cases which he could not reach. 
12. But the time was now rapidly approaching for 
the mighty experiment. , The day was drawing near on 
which the signal was to be given for raising the standard 
of revolt, and by a combined movement on both sides of 30 
the Wolga for spreading the smoke of one vast confla- 
gration, that should wrap in a common blaze their own 
huts and the stately cities of their enemies, over the 
breadth and length of those great provinces in which their 
flocks were dispersed. The year of the tiger was now 35 



22 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS 

within one little month of its commencement; the fifth 
morning of that year was fixed for the fatal day when 
the fortunes and happiness of a whole nation were to be 
put upon the hazard of a dicer's throw; and as yet that 
5 nation was in profound ignorance of the whole plan. 
The Khan, such was the kindness of his nature, could 
not bring himself to make the revelation so urgently 
required. It was clear, however, that this could not be 
delayed; and Zebek-Dorchi took the task willingly upon 

10 himself. But where or how should this notification be 
made, so as to exclude Eussian hearers? After some 
deliberation, the following plan was adopted: — Couriers, 
it was contrived, should arrive in furious haste, one upon 
the heels of another, reporting a sudden inroad of the 

15 Kirghises and Bashkirs upon the Kalmuck lands, at a 
point distant about 120 miles. Thither all the Kalmuck 
families, according to immemorial custom, were required 
to send a separate representative; and there accordingly, 
within three days, all appeared. The distance, the soli- 

20 tary ground appointed for the rendezvous, the rapidity 
of the march, all tended to make it almost certain that 
no Russian could be present. Zebek-Dorchi then came 
forward. He did not waste many words upon rhetoric. 
He unfurled an immense sheet of parchment, visible from 

25 the uttermost distance at which any of this vast crowd 
could stand; the total number amounted to 80,000; all 
saw, and many heard. They were told of the oppres- 
sions of Russia; of lier pride and haughty disdain evi- 
denced towards them by a thousand acts; of her con- 

30 tempt for their religion; of her determination to reduce 
them to absolute slavery; of the preliminary measures 
she had already taken by erecting forts upon many of the 
great rivers in their neighbourhood ; of the ulterior inten- 
tions she thus announced to circumscribe their pastoral 

35 lands, until they Avould all be obliged to renounce their 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS 23 

flocks, and to collect in towns like Sarepta, there to pur- 
sae mechanical and servile trades of shoemaker, tailor, 
and weaver, such as the free-born Tartar had always dis- 
dained. "Then again," said the subtle prince, "she 
increases her military levies upon our population every 5 
year; w^e pour out our blood as young men in her 
defence, or more often in sujiport of her insolent aggres- 
sions; and as old men we reap nothing from our suffer- 
ings, nor benefit by our survivorship where so many 
are sacrificed." At this point of his harangue, Zebek 10 
produced several papers (forged, as it is generally be- 
lieved, by himself and the Lama), contaiuing projects 
of the Russian court for a general transfer of the eldest 
sons, taken e7i masse from the greatest Kalmuck fam- 
ilies, to the imperial court. "Xow let this bo once 15 
accomplished," he argued, "and there is an end of all 
useful resistance from that day forwards. Petitions we 
might make, or even remonstrances; as men of words 
we might play a bold part; but for deeds, for that sort 
of language by which our ancestors were used to speak 20 
— holding us by such a chain, Eussia would make a jest 
of our wishes, knowing full Avell that we should not dare 
to make any effectual movement." 

13. Having thus sufBciently roused the angry pas- 
sions of his vast audience, and having alarmed their fears 25 
by this pretended scheme against their first-born (an 
artifice which was indispensable to his puri^ose, because 
it met beforehand every form of amendment to his pro- 
posal coming from the more moderate nobles, who would 
not otherwise have failed to insist upon trying the effect 30 
of bold addresses to the Empress before resorting to any 
desperate extremity)/Zebek-Dorchi opened his scheme 
of revolt, and, if so, of instant revolt;^ since any prepa- 
rations reported at St. Petersburg worild be a signal for 
the armies of Russia to cross into such positions from 35 



24 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS 

all parts of Asia as would effectually intercept their 
march. It is remarkable, however, that, with all his 
audacit}' and his reliance upon the momentary excite- 
ment of the Kalmucks, the subtle prince did not ven- 
5 ture, at this stage of his seduction, to make so startling 
a proposal as that of a flight to China. All that he held 
out for the present was a rapid march to the Temba or 
some other great river, which they were to cross, and 
take up a strong position on the farther bank, from 
10 which, as from a post of conscious security, they could 
hold a bolder language to the Czarina, and one which 
would have a better chance of winning a favourable 
audience. 

14. These things, in the irritated condition of the 
15 simple Tartars, passed by acclamation; and all returned 

homewards to push forward with the m^st furious speed 
the preparations for their awful undertaking.^ Rapid 
and energetic these of necessity were; and in that 
degree they became noticeable and manifest to the Rus- 
20 sians who happened to be intermingled with the differ- 
ent hordes, either on commercial errands, or as agents 
officially from the Russian Government, some in a finan- 
cial, others in a diplomatic character. 

15. Amongst these last (indeed at the head of them) 
35 was a Russian of some distinction, by name Kichinskoi, 

a man memorable for his vanity, and memorable also as 
one of the many victims to the Tartar revolution. This 
Kichinskoi had been sent by the Empress as her envoy 
to overlook the conduct of the Kalmucks; he was styled 

30 the Grand Pristaw, or Great Commissioner, and was 
universally known amongst the Tartar tribes by this 
title. His mixed character of ambassador and of polit- 
ical surveillant, combined with the dependent state of 
the Kalmucks, gave him a real weight in the Tartar 

35 councils, and might have given him a far greater, had 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS 25 

not his outrageous self-conceit, and his arrogant confi- 
dence in his own authority as due chiefly to his personal 
qualities for command, led him into such harsh displays 
of power, and menaces so odious to the Tartar pride, as 
very soon made him an object of their profoundest 5 
malice. He had publicly insulted the Khan; and, upon 
making a communication to him to the effect that some 
reports began to circulate, and even to reach the Em- 
press, of a design in agitation to fly from the imperial 
dominions, he had ventured to say, '* But this you dare 10 
not attempt; I laugh at such rumours ; yes, Khan, I 
laugh at them to the Empress; for you are a chained 
bear, and that you know." The Khan turned away on 
his heel with marked disdain; and the Pristaw, foaming 
at the mouth, continued to utter, amongst those of the 15 
Khan's attendants who staid behind to catch his real 
sentiments in a moment of unguarded passion, all that 
the blindest frenzy of rage could suggest to the most 
presumptuous of fools. It was now ascertained that 
suspicions had arisen; but at the same time it was ascer- 20 
tained that the Pristaw spoke no more than the truth in 
representing himself to have discredited these suspicions. 
The fact was that the mere infatuation of vanity made 
him believe that nothing could go on undetected by his 
all-piercing sagacity, and that no rebellion could prosper 25 
■when rebuked by his commanding presence. The Tar- 
tars, therefore, pursued their preparations, confiding in 
the obstinate blindness of the Grand Pristaw as in their 
perfect safeguard; and such it proved — to his own ruin 
as well as that of myriads besides. 30 

16. Christmas arrived; and, a little before that time, 
courier upon courier came dropping in, one upon the 
very heels of another, to St. Petersburg, assuring the 
Czarina that beyond all doubt the Kalmucks were in the 
very crisis of departure. These despatches came from 35 



2G REVOLT OF THE TARTARS 

the Governor of Astraclian, and copies were instantly 
forwarded to Kichinskoi. Now, it happened that be- 
tween this governor — a Russian named Belvetoff — and the 
Pristaw had been an ancient feud. The very name of 
5 Beketoff inflamed his resentment; and no sooner did he 
see that hated name attached to the despatch than he felt 
himself confirmed in his former views with tenfold 
bigotry, and wrote instantly, in terms of the most pointed 
ridicnle, against the new alarmist, pledging his own head 

10 upon the visionariness of his alarms. Beketoff, however, 
was not to be put down by a few hard words, or by ridi- 
cnle: he persisted in his statements; the Russian minis- 
try were confounded by the obstinacy of the disputants; 
and some were beginning even to treat the Governor of 

15 Astrachan as a bore, and as the dupe of his own ner- 
vous terrors, when the memorable day arrived, the fatal 
5th of January, which for ever terminated the dispute, 
and put a seal upon the earthly hopes and fortunes of 
unnumbered myriads. The Governor of Astrachan was 

20 the first to hear the news. Stung by the mixed furies 
of jealousy, of triumphant vengeance, and of anxious 
ambition, he sprang into his sledge, and, at the rate of 
300 miles a-day, pursued his route to St. Petersburg — 
rushed into the Imperial presence — announced the total 

25 realisation of his worst predictions — and, upon the con- 
firmation of this intelligence by subsequent despatches 
from many different posts on the Wolga, he received an 
imperial commission to seize the person of his deluded 
enemy, and to keep him in strict captivity. These orders 

30 were eagerly fulfilled; and the unfortunate Kichinskoi 
soon afterwards expired of grief and mortification in 
the gloomy solitude of a dungeon — a victim to his own 
immeasurable vanity, and the blinding self-delusions of 
a presumption that refused all warning. 

35 17. The Governor of Astrachan had been but too 



REVOLT OF TEE TARTARS 27 

faithful a prophet. Perhaps even he was surprised at 
the suddenness with which the verification followed his 
reports. Precisely on the 5th of January, the day so 
solemnly appointed under religious sanctions by the 
Lama, the Kalmucks on the east bank of the Wolgfa 5 
were seen at the earliest dawn of day assembling by 
troops and sqnadrons, and in the tumultuous movement 
of some great morning of battle. Tens of thousands 
continued moving off the ground at every half-hour's 
interval. Women and children, to the amount of two 10 
hundred thousand and upwards, were placed upon wag- 
gons, or upon camels, and drcAV off by masses of twenty 
thousand at once — placed nnder suitable escorts, and 
continually swelled in numbers by other outlying bodies 
of the horde, who kept falling in at various distances 15 
upon the first and second day's march. From sixty to 
eighty thousand of those who were the best mounted staid 
behind the rest of the tribes, Avith pur^wses of devasta- 
tion and plunder more violent than prudence justified, 
or the amiable character of the Khan could be supposed 20 
to approve. But in this, as in other instances, he was 
completely overruled by the malignant counsels of Zebek- 
Dorchi. The first tempest of the desolating fury of the 
Tartars discharged itself upon their own habitations. 
But this, as cutting off all infirm looking backward from 25 
the hardships of their march, had been thought so nec- 
essary a measure by all the chieftains, that even Oubacha 
himself was the first to authorise- the act by his own 
example. He seized a torch previously prepared with 
materials the most durable as well as combustible, and 30 
steadily applied it to the timbers of his own palace. 
Nothing was saved from the general wreck except the 
portable part of the domestic utensils, and that part of 
the wood-work which could be applied to the manufac- 
ture of the long Tartar lances. This cha[)ter in their o5 



28 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS 

memorable day's work being finished, and the whole of 
their villages throughout a district of ten thousand 
square miles in one simultaneous blaze, the Tartars waited 
for further orders. 
5 18. These, it was intended, should have taken a char- 
acter of valedictory vengeance, and thus have left behind 
to the Czarina a dreadful commentary upon the main 
motives of their flight. It was the purpose of Zebek- 
Dorchi that all the Russian towns, churches, and build- 

10 ings of every description, should be given up to pillage 
and destruction, and such treatment applied to the 
defenceless inhabitants as might naturally be expected 
from a fierce people already infuriated by the spectacle 
of their own outrages, and by the bloody retaliations 

15 which they must necessarily have provoked. This part 
of the tragedy, however, was happily intercepted by a 
providential disappointment at the very crisis of depart- 
ure. It has been mentioned already that the motive for 
selecting the depth of winter as the season for flight 

20 (which otherwise was obviously the very worst possible) 
had been the impossibility of effecting a junction suffi- 
ciently rapid with the tribes on the west of the Wolga, 
in the absence of bridges, unless by a natural bridge of 
ice. For this one advantage, the Kalmuck leaders had 

25 consented to aggravate by a thousandfold the calamities 
inevitable to a rapid flight over boundless tracts of 
country, with women, children, and herds of cattle — 
for this one single advantage; and yet, after all, it was 
lost. The reason never has been explained satisfacto- 

30 rily, but the fact was such. Some have said that the 
signals were not properly concerted for marking the 
moment of absolute departure — that is, for signifying 
whether the settled intention of the Eastern Kalmucks 
might not have been suddenly interrupted by adverse 

:35 intelligence. Others have supposed that the ice might 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS 29 

not be equally strong on both sides of the river, and 
might even be generally insecure for the treading of 
heavy and heavily-laden animals such as camels. But 
the prevailing notion is that some accidental movements 
on the 3d and 4th of January of Russian troops in the 5 
neighbourhood of the Western Kalmucks, though really 
having no reference to them or their plans, had been 
construed into certain signs that all was discovered; and 
that the prudence of the Western chieftains, who, from 
situation, had never been exposed to those intrigues by 10 
which Zebek-Dorchi had practised upon the pride of 
the Eastern tribes, now stepped in to save their people 
from ruin. Be the cause what it might, it is certain 
that the Western Kalmucks were in some way prevented 
from forming the intended junction with their brethren 15 
of the opposite bank; and the result was that at least 
one hundred thousand of these Tartars were left behind 
in Russia. This accident it was which saved their Rus- 
sian neighbours universally from the desolation which 
else awaited them. One general massacre and confla- 20 
gration would assuredly have surprised them, to the 
utter extermination of their property, their houses, and 
themselves, had it not been for this disappointment. 
But the Eastern chieftains did not dare to put to hazard 
the safety of their brethren under the first impulse of the 25 
Czarina's vengeance for so dreadful a tragedy; for, as 
they were well aware of too many circumstances by which 
she might discover the concurrence of the Western 
people in the general scheme of revolt, they justly 
feared that she would thence infer their concurrence also 30 
in the bloody events which marked its outset. 

19. Little did the Western Kalmucks guess Avhat 
reasons they also had for gratitude on account of an 
interposition so unexpected, and which at the moment 
they so generally deplored. Could they but have wit- 35 



30 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS 

nessecl the tliousandtli part of the sufferings which over- 
took their Eastern brethren in the first month of their sad 
flight, they would have blessed Heaven for their own 
narrow escape; and yet these sufferings of the first month 
5 were but a prelude or foretaste comparatively slight of 
those which afterwards succeeded. 

20. For now began to unroll the most awful series of 
calamities, and the most extensive, which is anywhere 
recorded to have visited the sons and daughters of meu. 

10 It is jDossible that the sudden inroads of destroying 
nations, such as the Huns, or the Avars, or the Mongol 
Tartars, may have inflicted misery as extensive; but 
there the misery and the desolation would be sudden, 
like the flight of volleying lightning. Those who were 

15 spared at first would generally be spared to the end; 
those who perished at all would perish at once. It is 
possible that the French retreat from Moscow may have 
made some nearer approach to this calamity in duration, 
though still a feeble and miniature approach; for the 

20 French sufferings did not commence in good earnest 
until about one mouth from the time of leaving Mos- 
cow; and though it is true that afterwards the vials of 
wrath were emptied upon the devoted army for six or 
seven weeks in succession, yet what is that to this Kal- 

25 muck tragedy, which lasted for more than as many 
months? But the main feature of horror by which 
the Tartar march was distinguished from the French lies 
in the accompaniment of women ^ and children. There 
were both, it is true, with the French army, but not so 

30 

^ Singular it is, and not generally known, that Grecian women 
accompanied the anabasis of the younger Cyrus and tlie subse- 
quent Retreat of the Ten Thousand. Xenophon aflfirras that 
there were "many" women in the Greek army — noXXai ?}6ay 
Eraipat ev ro5 drftarsv/iiart; and in a late stage of that trying 

35 expedition it is evident that women were amongst the survivors. 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS 31 

many as to bear any marked proportion to the total 
numbers concerned. The French, in shorty were merely 
an army — a host of professional destroyers, whose regu- 
lar trade was bloodshed, and whose regular element was 
danger and suffering. But the Tartars were a nation car- 5 
rying along with them more than two hundred and fifty 
thousand women and children, utterly unequal, for the 
most part, to any contest witli the calamities before them. 
The Children of Israel were in the same circumstances 
as to the accompaniment of their families; but they 10 
were released from the pursuit of their enemies in a 
very early stage of their flight; and their subsequent 
residence in the Desert was not a march, bvit a continued 
halt, and under a continued interposition of Heaven for 
their comfortable support. Earthquakes, again, how- 15 
ever comprehensive in their ravages, are shocks of a 
moment's duration. A much nearer approach made to 
the wide range and the long duration of the Kalmuck 
tragedy may have been in a jiestilence such as that 
which visited Athens in the Peloponnesian War, or 20 
London in the reign of Charles II. There also the 
martyrs were counted by myriads, and the period of the 
desolation was counted by months. But, after all, the 
total amount of destruction was on a smaller scale; and 
there was this feature of alleviation to the conscious 25 
pressure of the calamity — that the misery was withdrawn 
from public notice into private chambers and hospitals. 
The siege of Jerusalem by Vespasian and his son, taken 
in its entire circumstances, comes nearest of all — for 
breadth and depth of suffering, for duration, for the 30 
exasperation of the suffering from without by ijiternal 
feuds, and, finally, for that last most appalling expres- 
sion of the furnace-heat of the anguish in its power to 
extinguish the natural affections even of maternal love. 
But, after all, each case had circumstances of romantic 35 



32 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS 

misery peculiar to itself — circumstances without prece- 
dent, and (wherever human nature is ennobled by Chris- 
tianity), it may be confidently hoped, never to be 
repeated . 
5 21. The first point to be reached, before any hope o' 
repose could be encoura.£jed, was the river Jaik. Thi 
was not above 300 miles from the main point of depart- 
ure on the Wolga; and if the march thither w^as to be 
a forced one, and. a severe one, it w^as alleged, on the 

10 other hand, that the suffering would be the more brief 
and transient; one summary exertion, not to be repeated, 
and all was achieved. Forced the march was, and severe 
beyond example: there the forew^arning proved correct; 
but the promised rest proved a mere phantom of the 

15 wilderness — a visionary rainbow, which fled before their 
hope-sick eyes, across these interminable solitudes, for 
seven months of hardship and calamity, without a pause. 
These sufferings, by their very nature, and the circum- 
stances under wdiich they arose, were (like the scenery of 

20 the stej)pes) somewhat monotonous in their colouring 
and external features; what variety, however, there was 
will be most naturally exhibited by tracing historically 
the successive stages of the general misery, exactly as it 
unfolded itself under the double agency of weakness 

25 still increasing from within, and hostile pressure from 
without. Viewed in this manner, under the real order 
of development, it is remarkable that these sufferings of 
the Tartars, though under the moulding hands of acci- 
dent, arrange themselves almost with a scenical propri- 

30 ety. They seem combined as with the skill of an artist; 
the intensity of the misery advancing regularly with the 
advances of the march, and the stages of the calamity 
corresponding to the stages of the route; so that, upon 
raising the curtain wiiich veils the great catastrophe, we 

oo behold one vast climax of anguish. toAvering upwards by 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS 33 

regular gradations, as if coustructed artificially for pictur- 
esque effect — a result which might not have been sur- 
prising had it been reasonable to anticipate the same rate 
of speed, and even an accelerated rate, as prevailing 
through the later stages of the expedition. But it seemed, 5 
on the contrary, most reasonable to calculate upon a con- 
tinual decrement in the rate of motion according to the 
increasing distance from the headquarters of the pursu- 
ing enemy. This calculation, however, was defeated by 
the extraordinary circumstance that the Russian armies 10 
did not begin to close in very fiercely upon the Kalmucks 
until after they had accomplished a distance of full 
2,000 miles: 1,000 miles farther on the assaults became 
even more tumultuous and murderous: and already the 
great shadows of the Chinese Wall were dimly descried 15 
when the frenzy and acharnement of the pursuers, and 
tlie bloody desperation of the miserable fugitives, had 
reached its uttermost extremity. Let us briefly rehearse 
the main stages of the misery, and trace the ascending 
steps of the tragedy, according to the great divisions of 20 
the route marked out by the central rivers of Asia. 

22. The first stage, we have already said, was from the 
AVolga to the Jaik; the distance about 300 miles; the 
time allowed seven days. For the first week, therefore, 
the rate of marching averaged about 43 English miles 35 
a-day. The weather was cold, but bracing; and, at a 
more moderate pace, this part of the journey might have 
been accomplished without much distress by a people 
as hardy as the Kalmucks: as it was, the cattle suffered 
greatly from over-driving; milk began to fail even for 30 
the children; the sheep perished by wholesale; and the 
children themselves were saved only by the innumerable 
camels. 

23. The Cossacks who dwelt upon the banks of the 
Jaik were the first among the subjects of Russia to 35 



34 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS 

come into collision Avitli the Kalmucks. Great was their 
surprise at the suddenness of the irruption, and great 
also their consternation; for, according to their settled 
custom, by far the greater part of their number was 
5 absent during the winter months at the fisheries upon 
the Caspian. Some who were liable to surprise at the 
most exposed points fled in crowds to the fortress of 
Koulagin?., which was immediately invested and sum- 
moned by Oubacha. He had, however, in his train 

10 only a few light pieces of artillery; and the Russian com- 
mandant at Koulagina, being aware of the hurried cir- 
cumstances in which the Khan was placed, and that he 
stood npon the very edge, as it were, of a renewed 
flight, felt encouraged by these considerations to a more 

15 obstinate resistance than might else have been advisable, 
with an enemy so little disposed to observe the usages of 
civilised warfare. The period of his anxiety was not 
long: on the fifth day of the siege he descried from the 
walls a succession of Tartar couriers, mounted upon fleet 

20 Bactrian camels, crossing the vast plains around the for- 
tress at a furious pace, and riding into the Kalmuck 
encampment at various points. Great agitation appeared 
immediately to follow: orders were soon after despatched 
in all directions; and it became speedily known that 

35 upon a distant flank of the Kalmuck movement a bloody 
and exterminating l^attle had been fought the day before, 
in which one entire tribe of the Khan's dependants, 
numbering not less than 9,000 fighting men, had perished 
to the last man. This was the oidoss, or clan, called 

80 Feka-Zechorr, between whom and the Cossacks there was 
a feud of ancient standing. In selecting, therefore, the 
points of attack, on occasion of the present hasty inroad, 
the Cossack chiefs were naturally eager so to direct their 
efforts as to combine with the service of the Empress 

35 some gratification to their own party hatreds : more espe- 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS 35 

ciallj as the present was likely to be their final opportu- 
nity for revenge, if the Kalmuck evasion should 2)rosper. 
Having, therefore, concentrated as large a body of Cos- 
sack cavalry as circumstances allowed, they attacked the 
hostile ouloss with a precipitation which denied to it all 5 
means for communicatiag with Oubacha; for the neces- 
sity of commanding an ample range of pasturage, to 
meet the necessities of their vast flocks and herds, had 
separated this ouloss from the Khan's liead-cpiarters by 
an interval of 80 miles; and thus it was, and not from 10 
oversight, that it came to be thrown entirely upon its 
own resources. These had proved insufficient: retreat, 
from the exhausted state of their horses and camels, 
no less than from the prodigious encumbrances of their 
live stock, was absolutely out of the question: quarter 15 
was disdained on the one side, and would not have 
been granted on the other: and thus it had happened 
that the setting sun of that one day (the thirteenth from 
the first opening of the revolt) threw his parting ra3'S 
upon the final agonies of an ancient ouloss, stretched 20 
upon a bloody field, who on that day's dawning had 
styled themselves an indeioendent nation. 

24. Universal consternation was diffused through the 
wide borders of the Khan's encampment by this disas- 
trous intelligence; not so much on account of the num- 25 
bers slain, or the total extinction of a powerful ally, as 
because the position of the Cossack force was likely to 
put to hazard the future advances of the Kalmucks, or 
at least to retard and hold them in check until the heav- 
ier columns of the Russian army should arrive upon their 30 
flanks. The siege of Koulagina was instantly raised; 
and that signal, so fatal to the happiness of the women 
and their children, once again resounded through the 
tents — the signal for flight, and this time for a flight 
more rapid than ever. About 150 miles ahead of their 35 



36 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS 

present position, there arose a tract of hilly country, 
forming a sort of margin to the vast sea-like expanse of 
champaign savannahs, steppes, and occasionally of sandy 
deserts, which stretched away on each side of this mar- 
5 gin hotli eastwards and westwards. Pretty nearly in the 
centre of this hilly range lay a narrow defile, through 
which passed the nearest and the most practicable route 
to the river Torgai (the farther bank of which river 
offered the next great station of security for a general 

10 halt). It was the more essential to gain this pass before 
the Cossacks, inasmuch as not only would the delay in 
forcing the pass give time to the Russian pursuing 
columns for combining their attacks, and for bringing 
up their artillery, but also because (even if all enemies 

15 in pursuit were thrown out of the question) it was held 
by those best acquainted with the difficult and obscure 
geography of these pathless steppes — that the loss of this 
one narrow strait amongst the hills would have the effect 
of throwing them (as their only alternative in a case 

20 where so wide a sweep of pasturage was required) upon 
a circuit of at least 500 miles extra; besides that, after 
all, this circuitous route would carry them to the Torgai 
at a point ill fitted for the passage of their heavy bag- 
gage. The defile in the hills, therefore, it was resolved 

25 to gain; and yet, unless they moved upon it with the 
velocity of light cavalry, there was little chance but that 
it would be found pre-occupied by the Cossacks. They 
also, it is true, had suffered greatly in the bloody action 
with the defeated ouloss ; but the excitement of vic- 

30 tory, and the intense sympathy with their unexampled 
triumph, had again swelled their ranks, and would prob- 
ably act with the force of a vortex to draw in their sim- 
ple countrymen from the Caspian. The question, there- 
fore, of pre-occupation was reduced to a race. The 

35 Cossacks were marching upon an oblique line not above 



BE VOLT OF THE TARTARS 37 

50 miles longer than that which led to the same point 
from the Kalmuck head-quarters before Koulagina; and 
therefore, without the most furious haste on the part of 
the Kalmucks, there was not a chance for them, bur- 
dened and "trashed"^ as they were, to anticipate so 5 
agile a light cavalry as the Cossacks in seizing this 
important pass. 

25. Dreadful were the feelings of the poor women on 
hearing this exposition of the case. For they easily 
understood that too capital an interest (the sumina 10 
rerum) was now at stake, to allow of any regard to 
minor interests, or what w^ould be considered such in 
their present circumstances. The dreadful week al- 
ready passed — their inauguration in misery — was yet 
fresh in their remembrance. The scars of suffering were 15 
impressed not only upon their memories, but upon their 
very persons and the persons of their children. And 
they knew that, where no speed had much chance of 
meeting the cravings of their chieftains, no test would 
be accepted, short of absolute exhaustion, that as much 20 
had been accomplished as could have been accomplished. 
Weseloff, the Eussian captive, has recorded the silent 
wretchedness with which the women and elder boys 
assisted in drawing the tent-ropes. On the 5tli of 
January all had been animation, and the joyousness of 25 
indefinite expectation; now, on the contrary, a brief but 
bitter experience had taught them to take an amended 
calculation of what it was that lay before them. 

26. One whole day and far into the succeeding night 
had the renewed flight continued ; the sufferings had been 30 

* " Trashed''^ : — This is an expressive word used by Beaumont 
and Fletcher in their *'Bonduca," &e., to describe the case of a 
person retarded and embarrassed in flight, or in pursuit, by 
some encumbrance, whether thing or person, too valuable to be 
left behind. 



38 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS 

greater than before; for the cold had been more intense; 
and many perished out of the living creatures through 
every class, except only the camels — whose powers of 
endurance seemed equally adapted to cold and to heat. 
5 The second morning, however, brought an alleviation to 
the distress. Snow had begun to fall; and, though not 
deep at present, it was easily foreseen that it soon would 
be so; and that, as a halt would in that case become un- 
avoidable, no plan could be better than that of staying 

10 where they were; especially as the same cause would 
check the advance of the Cossacks. Here then was the 
last interval of comfort which gleamed upon the unhappy 
nation during their whole migration. For ten days the 
snow continued to fall with little intermission. At the 

15 end of that time keen, bright, frosty weather succeeded; 
the drifting had ceased; in three days the smooth ex- 
panse became firm enough to support the treading of 
the camels; and the flight was recommenced. But dur- 
ing the halt much domestic comfort had been enjoyed, 

20 and for the last time universal plenty. The cows and 
oxen had perished in such vast numbers on the previous 
marches, that an order was now issued to turn what 
remained to account by slaughtering the whole, and 
salting whatever part should be found to exceed the 

25 immediate consumption. This measure led to a scene 
of general banqueting and even of festivity amongst all 
who were not incapacitated for joyous emotions by dis- 
tress of mind, by grief for the unhappy experience of the 
few last days, and by anxiety for the too gloomy future. 

30 Seventy thousand persons of all ages had already per- 
ished, exclusively of the many thousand allies who had 
been cut down by the Cossack sabre. And the losses in 
reversion were likely to be many more. For rumours 
began now to arrive from all quarters, by the mounted 

35 couriers whom the Khan had despatched to the rear and 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS 39 

to each flank as well as in advance, that large masses of 
the imperial troops Avere converging from all parts of 
Central Asia to the fords of the River Torgai, as the 
most convenient point for intercepting the flying tribes; 
and it was by this time well known that a powerful divi- 5 
sion was close in their rear, and was retarded only by the 
numerous artillery which had been judged necessary to 
support their operations. New motives were thus daily 
arising for quickening the motions of the wretched 
Kalmucks, and for exhausting those who were already 10 
but too much exhausted. 

27. It was not until the 2d day of February that 
the Khan's advanced guard came in sight of Ouchim, 
the defile among the hills of Mougaldchares, in which 
they anticipated so bloody an opposition from the Cos- 15 
sacks. A pretty large body of these light cavalry had^ 
in fact, pre-occupied the pass for some hours; but the 
Khan, having two great advantages — namely, a strong 
body of infantry, who had been conveyed by sections 
of five on about 200 camels, and some pieces of light 30 
artillery which he had not yet been forced to abandon 
— soon began to make a serious impression upon this 
unsupported detachment; and they would probably at 
any rate have retired; but at the very moment when 
they were making some dis^Dositions in that view Zebek- 25 
Dorchi appeared upon the rear with a body of trained 
riflemen, who had distinguished themselves in the war 
with Turkey. These men had contrived to crawl unob- 
served over the cliffs which skirted the ravine, availing 
themselves of the dry beds of the summer torrents, and 30 
other inequalities of the ground, to conceal their move- 
ment. Disorder and trepidation ensued instantly in 
the Cossack files; the Khan, who had been waiting with 
the elite of his heavy cavalry, charged furiously upon 
them; total overthrow followed to the Cossacks, and a 35 



40 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS 

slaughter sncli as in some measure avenged the recent 
bloody extermination of their allies, the ancient ouloss of 
Feka-Zechorr. The slight horses of the Cossacks were 
nnable to support the weight of heavy Polish dragoons and 
5 a body of trained cameleers (that is, cuirassiers mounted 
on camels) ; hardy they Avere, but not strong, nor a match 
for their antagonists in weight; and their extraordinary 
efforts through the last few days to gain their present 
position had greatly diminished their powers for effect- 

10 ing an escape. Very few, in fact, did escape; and the 
bloody day at Ouchim became as memorable amongst the 
Cossacks as that which, about twenty days before, had sig- 
nalised the complete annihilation of the Feka-Zechorr. ^ 
28. The road was now open to the river Irgitch, and 

15 as yet even far beyond it to the Torgau; but how long 
this state of things would continue was every day more 
doubtful. Certain intelligence was now received that a 
large Russian army, well appointed in every arm, was 
advancing upon the Torgau, under the command of 

20 General Traubenberg. This officer was to be joined on 
his route by ten thousand Bashkirs, and pretty nearly 
the same amount of Kirghises — both hereditary enemies 

' There was another ouloss equally strong with that of Feka- 
Zechorr, viz.,* that of Erketunn, under the government of Assarcho 
and Machi, whom some obligations of treaty or other hidden mo- 
tives drew into the general conspiracy of revolt. But fortunately 
the two chieftains found means to assure the Governor of Astra- 
chan, on the first outbreak of the insurrection, that their real 
wishes were for maintaining the old connection with Russia. The 
Cossacks, therefore, to whom the pursuit was intrusted, had 
instructions to act cautiously and according to circumstances on 
coming up with them. The result was, through the prudent 
management of Assarcho, that the clan, without compromising 
their pride or independence, made such moderate submissions as 
satisfied the Cossacks ; and eventually both chiefs and people 
received from the Czarina the rewards and honours of exemplary 
fidelity. 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS 41 

of the Kalmucks, both exasperated to a point of madness 
by the bloody trophies which Oubacha and Momotbacha 
had, in late years, won from such of their compatriots as 
served under the Sultan. The Czarina's yoke these wild 
nations bore with submissive patience, but not the hands 5 
by which it had been imposed; and, accordingly, catch- 
ing with eagerness at the present occasion offered to their 
vengeance, they sent an assurance to the Czarina of their 
perfect obedience to her commands, and at the same time 
a message significantly declaring in what spirit they 10 
meant to execute them, viz., *' that they would not trou- 
ble her Majesty with prisoners." 

29. Here then arose, as before with the Cossacks, a 
race for the Kalmucks with the regular armies of Russia, 
and concurrently with nations as fierce and semi-human- 15 
ised as themselves, besides that they had been stung 
into threefold activity by the furies of mortified pride 
and military abasement, under the eyes of the Turkish 
Sultan. The forces, and more especially the artillery, of 
Russia were far too overwhelming to bear the thought 20 
of a regular opposition in pitched battles, even with a 
less dilapidated state of their resources than they could 
reasonably expect at the period of their arrival on the 
Torgau. In their speed lay their only hope — in strength 
of foot, as before, and not in strength of arm. On- 25 
ward, therefore, the Kalmucks pressed, marking the 
lines of their wide-extending march over the sad soli- 
tudes of the steppes by a never-ending chain of corpses. 
The old and the young, the sick man on his couch, the 
mother with her baby — all were dropping fast. Such 30 
sights as these, with the many rueful aggravations inci- 
dent to the helpless condition of infancy — of disease 
and of female weakness abandoned to the wolves amidst 
a howling wilderness, continued to track their course 
through a space of full two tliousand miles; for so much, 35 



42 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS 

at the least, it was likely to prove, including the circuits 
to which they were often compelled by rivers or hostile 
tribes, from the point of starting on the Wolga, until 
they could reach their destined halting ground on the 
5 east bank of the Torgau. For the first seven weeks of 
this march their sufferings had been embittered by the 
excessive severity of the cold; and every night — so long 
as wood was to be had for fires, either from the lading 
of the camels, or from the desperate sacrifice of their 

10 baggage-waggons, or (as occasionally happened) from the 
forests which skirted the banks of the many rivers which 
crossed their path — no spectacle was more frequent than 
that of a circle, composed of men, women, and ciiildren, 
gathered by hundreds round a central fire, all dead and 

15 stiff' by the return of the morning light. Myriads were 
left behind from pure exhaustion, of whom none had a 
chance, under the combined evils which beset them, of 
surviving through the next twenty-four hours. Frost, 
however, and snow at length ceased to persecute; the 

20 vast extent of the march at length brought them into 
more genial latitudes, and the unusual duration of the 
march was gradually bringing them into more genial 
seasons of the year. Two thousand miles had at last been 
traversed; February, March, April, were gone; the 

25 balmy month of May had opened; vernal sights and 
sounds came from every side to comfort the heart-weary 
travellers; and, at last, in the latter end of May, cross- 
ing the Torgau, they took up a position where they hoped 
to find liberty to repose themselves for many weeks in 

30 comfort as well as in security, and to draw such supplies 

from the fertile neighbourhood as might restore their 

shattered forces to a condition for executing, witli less of 

wreck and ruin, the large remainder of the journey. 

30. Yes; it was true that two thousand miles of wan- 

35 dering had been completed, but in a period of nearly 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS 43 

five months, and with the terrific sacrifice of at least 
two hundred and fifty thousand souls, to say nothing of 
herds and fiocks past all reckoning. These had all per- 
ished : ox, cow, horse, mule, ass, sheep, or goat, not one 
survived — only the camels. These arid and adust creat- 5 
ures, looking like the mummies of some antediluvian 
animals, without the afi'ections or sensibilities of flesh and 
blood — these only still erected their speaking eyes to the 
eastern heavens, and had to all appearance come out from 
this long tempest of trial unscathed and hardly dimin- 10 
ished. The Khan, knowing how much he was individu- 
ally answerable for the misery which had been sustained, 
must have wept tears even more bitter than those of 
Xerxes, wdien he threw his eyes over the myriads whom 
he had assembled : for the tears of Xerxes were unmin- 15 
gled with remorse. AYhatever amends were in his power 
the Khan resolved to make, by sacrifices to the general 
good of all personal regards; and accordingly, even at 
this point of their advance, he once more deliberately 
brought under review the whole question of the revolt. 20 
The question was formally debated before the Council, 
whether, even at this point, they should untread their 
steps, and, throwing themselves ujoon the Czarina's 
mercy, return lo their old allegiance. In that case, 
Oiibacha professed himself willing to become the scape- 25 
goat for the general transgression. This, he argued, 
was no fantastic scheme, but even easy of accomplish- 
ment; for the unlimited and sacred power of the Khan, 
so well known to the Empress, made it absolutely ini- 
quitous to attribute any separate responsibility to the 30 
people — upon the Khan rested the guilt, upon the Khan 
would descend the imperial vengeance. This proposal 
was applauded for its generosity, but was energetically 
opposed by Zebek-Dorchi. Were they to lose the whole 
journey of two thousand miles ? Was their misery to 35 



44 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS 

perish without fruit? True it was that they had yet 
reached only the half-way house; but, in that respect, the 
motives were evenly balanced for retreat or for advance. 
Either way they would have pretty nearly the same 
5 distance to traverse, but wdth this difference — that, for- 
wards, their route lay through lands comparatively fertile; 
backwards, through a blasted wilderness, rich only in 
memorials of their sorrow, and hideous to Kalmuck eyes 
by the trophies of their calamity. Besides, though the 

10 Empress might accept an excuse for the past, would she 
the less forbear to suspect for the future ? The Czarina's 
pardon they might obtain, but could they ever hope to 
recover her confidence 9 Doubtless there would now be a 
standing presumption against them, an immortal ground 

15 of jealousy; and a jealous government would be but an- 
other name for a harsh one. Finally, whatever motives 
there ever had been for the revolt surely remained unim- 
paired by anything that had occurred. In reality, the 
revolt was, after all, no revolt, but (strictly sjoeaking) a 

20 return to their old allegiance; since, not over one 
hundred and fifty years ago (viz., in the year 1616), their 
ancestors had revolted from the Emperor of China. 
They had now tried both governments; and for them 
China was the land of promise, and Eussia the house of 

25 bondage. 

31. Spite, however, of all that Zebek could say or do, 
the yearning of the people was strongly in behalf of the 
Khan's proposal; the pardon of their prince, they per- 
suaded themselves, w^ould be readily conceded by the 

30 Empress: and there is little doubt that they would at 
this time have thrown themselves gladly upon the impe- 
rial mercy; when suddenly all was defeated by the arrival 
of two envoys from Traubenberg. This general had 
reached the fortress of Orsk, after a very painful march, 

35 on the 12th of April; thence he set forwards towards 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS 45 

Oriembourg; which he reached upon the 1st of June, 
having been joined on his route at various times during 
the month of May by the Kirghises and a corps of ten 
thousand Bashkirs. From Oriembourg he sent forward 
his official offers to the Khan, which were harsh and 5 
peremptory, holding out no specific stipulations as to 
pardon or impunity, and exacting unconditional submis- 
sion as the preliminary price of any cessation from 
military operations. The personal character of Trau- 
benberg, which was anything but energetic, and the con- 10 
dition of his army, disorganised in a great measure by 
the length and severity of the march, made it probable 
that, with a little time for negotiation, a more concilia- 
tory tone would have been assumed. But, unhappily for 
all parties, sinister events occurred in the meantime, 15 
such as effectually put an end to every hope of the kind. 
32. The two envoys sent forward by Traubenberg had 
reported to this officer that a distance of only ten days' 
march lay between his own head-quarters and those of 
the Khan. Upon this fact transpiring, the Kirghises, 20 
by their prince Nourali, and the Bashkirs, entreated 
the Russian general to advance without delay. Once 
having placed his cannon in position, so as to command 
the Kalmuck camp, the fate of the rebel Khan and his 
people would be in his own hands: and they would 25 
themselves form his advanced guard. Traubenberg, 
however ['wliy has not been certainly explained), refused 
to march, grounding his refusal upon the condition of 
his army, and their absolute need of refreshment. 
Long and fierce was the altercation; but at length, see- 30 
ing no chance of prevailing, and dreading above all other 
events the escape of their detested enemy, the fero- 
cious Bashkirs went off in a body by forced marches. In 
six days they reached the Torgau, crossed by swimming 
their horses, and fell upon the Kalmucks, who were dis- 35 



46 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS 

persed for many a league in search of food or provender 
for their camels. The first day's action was one vast 
succession of independent skirmishes, diffused over a 
field of thirty to forty miles in extent; one party often 
5 breaking up into three or four, and again (according to 
the accidents of the ground) three or four blending into 
one; flight and 2:)nrsuit, rescue and total overthrow, 
going on simultaneously, under all varieties of form, in 
all quarters of the plain. The Bashkirs had found 

10 themselves obliged, by the scattered state of the Kal- 
mucks, to ^\)\\t up into innumerable sections; and thus, 
for some hours, it had been impossible for the most prac- 
tised eye to collect the general tendency of the day's for- 
tune. Both the Khan and Zebek-Dorchi were at one 

15 moment made prisoners, and more than once in immi- 
nent danger of being cut down; but at length Zebek 
succeeded in rallying a strong column of infantry, 
which, with the support of the camel-corps on each 
flank, compelled the Bashkirs to retreat. Clouds, how- 

20 ever, of these wild cavalry continued to arrive through 
the next two days and nights, followed or accompanied 
by the Kirghises. These being viewed as the advaiiced 
parties of Traubenberg's army, the Kalmuck chieftains 
saw no hope of safety but in flight; and in this way it 

25 happened that a retreat which had so recently been 
brought to a pause was resumed at the very moment 
when the unhappy fugitives were anticipating a deep 
repose without further molestation the whole summer 
through. 

30 33. It seemed as though every variety of wretched- 
ness were predestined to the Kalmucks, and as if their 
sufferings were incomplete unless they were rounded and 
matured by all that the most dreadful agencies of sum- 
mer's heat could superadd to those of frost and winter. 

35 To this sequel of their story I shall immediately revert. 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS 47 

after first noticing a little romantic episode which oc- 
curred at this point between Oubacha and his unprinci- 
pled cousin Zebek-Dorchi. 

34. There was at the time of the Kalmuck flight from 
the Wolga a Russian gentleman of some rank at the court 5 
of the Khan, whom, for political reasons, it was thought 
necessary to carry along with them as a captive. For 
some weeks his confinement had been very strict, and in 
one or two instances cruel. But, as the increasing dis- 
tance was continually diminishing the chances of escape, 10 
and perhaps, also, as the misery of the guards gradually 
withdrew their attention from all minor interests to their 
own personal sufferings, the vigilance of the custody 
grew more and more relaxed ; until at length, npon a peti- 
tion to the Khan, Mr. Weseloff was formally restored 15 
to liberty; and it was understood that he might use his 
liberty in whatever way he chose, even for returning 
to Russia, if that should be his Avish. Accordinglv, he 
was making active preparations for his journey to St. 
Petersburg, when it occurred to Zebek-Dorchi that, not 20 
improbably, in some of the battles which were then 
anticipated with Traubenberg, it might happen to them 
to lose some prisoner of rank, in which case the Russian 
Weseloff would be a pledge in their hands for negotiat- 
ing an exchange. Upon this plea, to his own severe 25 
affliction, the Russian was detained until the further 
pleasure of the Khan. The Khan's name, indeed, was 
used through the whole affair; but, as it seemed, with 
so little concurrence on his part, that, when Weseloff in 
a private audience humbly remonstrated upon the 30 
injustice done him, and the cruelty of thus sporting 
with his feelings by setting him at liberty, and, as it 
were, tempting him into dreams of home and restored 
happiness only for the purpose of blighting them, the 
good-natured prince disclaimed all participatiou in the 35 



48 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS 

affair, and went so far in proving liis sincerity, as even to 
give liim permission to effect his escape; and, as a ready 
means of commencing it without raising suspicion, the 
Khan mentioned to Mr. Weseloff that he had just then 
5 received a message from the Hetman of the Bashkirs, 
soliciting a private interview on the banks of the Tor- 
gau at a spot pointed out : that interview was arranged 
for the coming night; and Mr. AVeseloff might go in the 
Khan's suite, which on either side was not to exceed 

10 three persons. AVeseloff was a prudent man, acquainted 
with the world, and he read treachery in the very outline 
of this scheme, as stated by the Khan — treachery against 
the Khan's person. He mused a little, and then com- 
municated so much of his suspicions to the Khan as 

15 might put him on his guard; but, upon further consid- 
eration, he begged leave to decline the honour of accom- 
panying the Khan. The fact was that three Kalmucks, 
who had strong motives for returning to their country- 
men on the west bank of the AVolga, guessing the inten- 

30 tions of Weseloff, had offered to join him in his escape. 
These men the Khan would probably find himself 
obliged to countenance in their project; so that it became 
a point of honour with Weseloff to conceal their inten- 
tions, and therefore to accomplish the evasion from the 

25 camp (of which the first steps only would be hazardous) 
without risking the notice of the Khan. 

35. The district in which they were now encamped 
abounded through many hundred miles with wild horses 
of a docile and beautiful breed. Each of the four fugi- 

30 tives had caught from seven to ten of these spirited creat- 
ures in the course of the last few days: this raised no 
suspicion, for the rest of the Kalmucks had been mak- 
ing the same sort of provision against the coming toils 
of their remaining route to China. These horses were 

35 secured bv halters, and hidden about dusk in the thick- 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS 49 

ets which lined the margin of the river. To tliese 
thickets, about ten at night, the four fugitives repaired; 
they took a circuitous path, which drew them as little 
as possible within danger of challenge from any of the 
outposts or of the patrols which had been established on 5 
the quarters where the Bashkirs lay; and in three-quar- 
ters of an honr they reached the rendezvous. The moon 
had now risen, the horses were unfastened, and they 
Avere in the act of mounting, when suddenly the deejD 
silence of the woods was disturbed by a violent uproar 10 
and the clashing of arms. Weseloff fancied that he 
heard the voice of the Khan shouting for assistance. 
He remembered the communication made by that prince 
in the morning; and requesting his companions to sup- 
port him, he rode off in the direction of the sound. A 15 
very short distance brought him to an open glade within 
the wood, where he beheld four men contending with a 
party of at least nine or ten. Two of the four were dis- 
mounted at the very instant of Weseloff's arrival; one of 
these he recognised almost certainly as the Khan, who 20 
was fighting hand to hand, but at great disadvantage, 
with two of the adverse horsemen. Seeing that no time 
was to be lost, Weseloff fired and brought down one of 
the two. His companions discharged their carbines at 
the same moment, and then all rushed simultaneously 25 
into the little open area. The thundering sound of about 
thirty horses all rushing at once into a narrow space 
gave the impression that a whole troop of cavalry was 
coming down upon the assailants, who accordingly 
Avheeled about and fled with one impulse. Weseloff 30 
advanced to the dismounted cavalier, who, as he ex- 
pected, proved be the Khan. The man whom Weseloff 
had shot was lying dead ; and both were shocked, though 
Weseloff at least was not surprised, on stooping down 
and scrutinising his features, to recognise a well-known 35 

A 



50 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS 

confidential servant of Zebek-Dorclii. Nothing was said 
by either party; the Khan rode off escorted by Weseloff 
and his companions, and for some time a dead silence pre- 
vailed. The situation of Weseloff was delicate and criti- 
5 cal; to leave the Khan at this point was probably to 
cancel their recent services; for he might be again 
crossed on his path, and again attacked by the very party 
from whom he had just been delivered. Yet, on the 
other hand, to return to the camp was to endanger the 

10 chances of accomplishing the escape. The Khan also 
was apparently revolving all this in his mind, for at 
length he broke silence, and said, ^' I comprehend your 
situation; and under other circumstances I might feel it 
my duty to detain your companions. But it would ill 

15 become me to do so after the important service you have 
just rendered me. Let us turn a little to the left. 
There, where you see the watch-fire, is an outpost. 
Attend me so far. I am then safe. You may turn and 
pursue your enterprise; for the circumstances under 

20 which you will appear, as my escort, are sufficient to 
shield you from all suspicion for the present. I regret 
having no better means at my disposal for testifying my 
gratitude. But tell me before we part — Was it accident 
only which led you to my rescue ? Or had you acquired 

25 any knowledge of the plot by which I was decoyed into 
this snare ? ' ' Weseloff answered very candidly that 
mere accident had brought him to the spot at which he 
heard the uproar, but that having heard it, and con- 
necting it with the Khan's communication of the morn- 

30 ing, he had then designedly gone after the sound in a 
way wliich he certainly should not have done at so criti- 
cal a moment, unless in the expectation of finding the 
Khan assaulted by assassins. A few minutes after they 
reached the outpost at wliich it became safe to leave the 

35 Tartar chieftain; and immediately the four fugitives 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS 51 

commenced a fliglit which is perhaps without a parallel 
ill the aiiuals of travelling. Each of them led six or 
seven horses besides the one he rode; and, by shifting 
from one to the other (like the ancient Desultors of the 
Roman circus), so as never to burden the same horse for 5 
more than half an hour at a time, they continued to 
advance at the rate of 200 miles in the 24 hours for three 
days consecutively. After that time, conceiving them- 
selves beyond pursuit, they proceeded less rapidly; 
though still with a velocity which staggered the belief 10 
of Weseloff's friends in after years. He was, however, 
a man of high principle, and always adhered firmly to 
the details of his printed report. One of the circum- 
stances there stated is that they continued to pursue 
the route by which the Kalmucks had fled, never for 15 
an instant finding any difficulty in tracing it by the 
skeletons and other memorials of their calamities. In 
particular, he mentions vast heaps of money as part of 
tlie valuable property which it had been found necessary 
to sacrifice. These heaps were found lying still untouched 20 
in the deserts. From these AVeseloff and his com- 
panions took as much as they could conveniently carry; 
and this it was, with the j^nce of their beautiful horses, 
Avhicli they afterwards sold at one of the Russian military 
settlements for about £15 apiece, which eventually ena- 25 
bled tliem to pursue their journey in Russia. This jour- 
ney, as regarded Weselolf in particular, was closed by 
a tragical catastrophe. He was at that time young, and 
the only child of a doating mother. Her affliction under 
the violent abduction of her son had been excessive, and 30 
probably had undermined her constitution. Still she 
had supported it. Weselolf, giving way to the natural 
impulses of his filial affection, had imprudently posted 
through Russia to his mother's house without warning of 
his approach. He rushed precipitately into her presence; 35 



52 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS 

and she, who had stood tlie shocks of sorrow, was found 
unequal to the shock of joy too sudden and too acute. 
She died upon the spot. 



5 36. I now revert to the final scenes of the Kalmuck 
flight. These it would be useless to pursue circumstan- 
tially through the Avhole two thousand miles of suffering 
which remained; for the character of that suffering was 
even more monotonous than on the former half of the 

10 flight, and also more severe. Its main elements were 
excessive heat, with the accompaniments of famine and 
thirst, but aggravated at every step by the murderous 
attacks of their cruel enemies the Bashkirs and the 
Kirghises. 

15 37. These people, "more fell than anguish, hunger, 
or the sea," stuck to the unhappy Kalmucks like a 
swarm of enraged hornets. And very often, whilst they 
were attacking them in the rear, their advanced parties 
and flanks were attacked with almost equal fury by the 

20 people of the country which they were traversing; and 
with good reason, since the law of self-preservation had 
now obliged the fugitive Tartars to plunder provisions, 
and to forage wherever they passed. In tliis respect 
their condition was a constant oscillation of wretched- 

35 ness; for sometimes, pressed by grinding famine, they 
took a circuit of perhaps a hundred miles, in order to 
strike into a land rich in the comforts of life; but in 
such a land they were sure to find a crowded population, 
of which every arm was raised in unrelenting hostility, 

30 with all the advantages of local knowledge, and with 
constant pre-occupation of all the defensible positions, 
mountain passes, or bridges. Sometimes, again, wearied 
out with this mode of suffering, they took a circuit of 
perhaps a hundred miles, in order to strike into a land 

85 with few or no inhabitants. But in such a land they 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS 53 

were sure to meet absolute starvation. Then, again, 
whether with or without this plague of starvation, 
whether with or without this ^^lague of hostility in front, 
whatever might be the " fierce varieties " of their misery 
in tliis respect, no rest ever came to their unhappy rear; 5 
post eqiiitem sedet atra cura ; it was a torment like the 
undying worm of conscience. And, upon the whole, it 
presented a spectacle altogether unprecedented in the his- 
tory of mankind. Private and personal malignity is not 
unfrequently immortal ; but rare indeed is it to find the 10 
same pertinacity of malice in a nation. And what em- 
bittered the interest was that the malice was reciprocal. 
Thus far the parties met upon equal terms; but that 
equality only sharpened the sense of their dire inequal- 
ity as to other circumstances. The Bashkirs were ready 15 
to fight " from morn to dewy eve." The Kalmucks, 
on the contrary, were always obliged to run. Was it 
from their enemies as creatures whom they feared ? 
Xo; but towards their friends — towards that final haven 
of China — as what was hourly implored by the prayers 20 
of their wives, and the tears of their children. But, 
though they fled unwillingl}^ too often they fled in vain 
— being unwillingly recalled. There lay the torment. 
Every day the Bashkirs fell upon them; every day the 
same unprofitable battle was renewed ; as a matter of 25 
course, the Kalmucks recalled part of their advanced 
guard to fight them; every day the battle raged for 
hours, and uniformly with the same result. For no 
sooner did the Bashkirs find themselves too heavily 
pressed, and that the Kalmuck march had been retarded 30 
by some hours, than they retired into the boundless 
deserts, where all pursuit was hopeless. But, if the 
Kalmucks resolved to press forward, regardless of their 
enemies, in that case their attacks became so fierce and 
overwhelming that the general safety seemed likely to 35 



54 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS 

be brought into question ; nor could any effectual rem- 
edy be applied to the case, even for each separate day, 
except by a most embarrassing halt, and by counter- 
marches that, to men in their circumstances, were 
5 almost worse than death. It will not be surprising that 
the irritation of such a systematic persecution, super- 
added to a previous and hereditary hatred, and accom- 
panied by the stinging consciousness of utter impotence 
as regarded all effectual vengeance, should gradually 

10 have inflamed the Kalmuck animosity into the wildest 
expression of downright madness and frenzy. Indeed, 
long before the frontiers of China were approached, the 
hostility of both sides had assumed the appearance much 
more of a warfare amongst wild beasts than amongst 

15 creatures acknowledging the restraints of reason or the 
claims of a common nature. The spectacle became too 
atrocious; it was that of a host of lunatics pursued by 
a host of fiends. 



20 

38. On a fine morning in the early autumn of the 
year 1771, Kien Long, the Emperor of China, was pur- 
suing his amusements in a wild frontier district lying 
on the outside of the Great Wall. For many hundred 

25 square leagues the country was desolate of inhabitants, 
but rich in woods of ancient growth, and overrun with 
game of every description. In a central spot of this 
solitary region the Emperor had built a gorgeous hunt- 
ing lodge, to which he resorted annually for recreation 

30 and relief from the cares of government. Led onwards 
in pursuit of game, he had rambled to a distance of 200 
miles or more from this lodge, followed at a little 
distance by a sufficient military escort, and every night 
pitching his tent in a different situation, until at 

35 length he had arrived on the very margin of the vast 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS 55 

central deserts of Asia.^ Here he was standing by acci- 
dent at an opening of his pavilion, enjoying the morn- 
ing sunshine, wlien suddenly to the Avestwards there 
arose a vast cloudy vapour, which by degrees expanded, 
mounted, and seemed to be slowly diffusing itself over 5 
the whole face of the heavens. By and by this vast 
sheet of mist began to thicken towards the horizon, and 
to roll forward in billowy volumes. The Emperor's suite 
assembled from all quarters. The silver trumpets were 
sounded in the rear, and from all the glades aud forest 10 
avenues began to trot forward towards the pavilion the 
yagers — half-cavalry, half-huntsmen — who composed the 
imperial escort. Conjecture was on the stretch to divine 
the cause of this phenomenon, and the interest continu- 
ally increased, in proportion as simple curiosity gradu- 15 
ally deepened into the anxiety of uncertain danger. At 
first it had been imagined that some vast troops of deer, 
or other wild animals of the chase, had been disturbed 
in their forest haunts by the Emperor's movements, or 
possibly by wild beasts prowling for prey, and might be 20 
fetching a compass by way of re-entering the forest 
grounds at some remoter points secure from molestation. 
But this conjecture was dissipated by the slow increase 
of the cloud, and the steadiness of its motion. In the 
course of two hours the vast phenomenon had advanced 25 
to a point which was judged to be within five miles of 
the spectators, though all calculations of distance were 
difficult, and often fallacious, when applied to the end- 
less expanses of the Tartar deserts. Through the next 

' All the circumstances are learned from a long state paper upon 
the subject of this Kalmuck migration, drawn up in the Chinese 
language by the Emperor himself. Parts of this paper have been 
translated by the Jesuit missionaries. The Emperor states the 
whole motives of his conduct and the cliief incidents at great 
length. 



56 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS 

hour, during wliicli the gentle morning breeze had a 
little freshened, the dusty vapour had developed itself 
far and wide into the appearance of huge aerial dra- 
peries, hanging in mighty volumes from the sky to the 

5 earth; and at particular points, Avhere the eddies of the 
breeze acted upon the pendulous skirts of these aerial 
curtains, rents were perceived, sometimes taking the 
form of regular arches, portals, and windows, through 
which began dimly to gleam the heads of camels " in- 

10 dorsed " ^ with human beings — and at intervals the 
moving of men and horses in tumultuous array — and 
then through other openings or vistas at far distant 
points the flashing of j^olished arms. But sometimes, as 
the wind slackened or died away, all those openings, of 

15 whatever form, in the cloudy pall would slowly close, 
and for a time the whole pageant was shut up from view; 
although the growing din, the clamours, shrieks, and 
groans, ascending from infuriated myriads, reported, in 
a language not to be misunderstood, what was going on 

30 behind the cloudy screen. 

39. It was in fact the Kalmuck host, now in the last 
extremities of their exhaustion, and very fast approach- 
ing to that final stage of privation and killing misery 
beyond which few or none could have lived, but also, 

25 happily for themselves, fast approaching (in a literal 
sense) that final stage of their long pilgrimage at Avliich 
they would meet hospitality on a scale of royal magnifi- 
cence, and full protection from their enemies. These 
enemies, however, as yet, were still hanging on their rear 

30 as fiercely as ever, though this day was destined to be 
the last of their hideous persecution. The Khan had, 
in fact, sent forward couriers with all the requisite state- 
ments and petitions, addressed to the Emperor of China. 

' Camels " indorsed " ; — ''And elephants indorsed with towers." — 
Milton in '• Paradise Regained." 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS 



07 



These had been duly received, and preparations made in 
consequence to welcome the Kalmucks with the most 
paternal benevolence. But, as these couriers had been 
despatched from the Torgau at the moment of arrival 
thither, and before the advance of Traubenberg had o 
made it necessary for the Khan to order a hasty renewal 
of the flight, the Em23eror had not looked for their 
arrival on his frontiers until full three months after the 
present time. The Khan had indeed expressly notified 
his intention to pass the summer heats on the banl:s of 10 
the Torgau, and to recommence his retreat about the 
beginning of September. The subsequent change of 
plan, being unknown to Kien Long, left him for some 
time in doubt as to the true interpretation to be put 
upon this mighty apparition in the desert; but at length 15 
the savage clamours of hostile fury, and the clangour of 
weapons, unveiled to the Emperor the true nature of 
those unexpected calamities which had so prematurely 
precipitated the Kalmuck measures. 

40. Apprehending the real state of affairs, the Empe- 20 
ror instantly perceived that the first act of his fatherly 
care for these erring children (as he esteemed them), now 
returning to their ancient obedience, must be — to deliver 
them from their pursuers. And this was less difficult 
than might have been supposed. Not many miles in the 25 
rear was a body of well-appointed cavalry, with a strong 
detachment of artillery, who always attended tlie Em- 
peror's motions. These were hastily summoned. Mean- 
time it occurred to the train of courtiers that some 
danger might arise to the Emperor's person from the 30 
proximity of a lawless enemy; and accordingly he was 
induced to retire a little to the rear. It soon appeared, 
however, to those who watched the vapoury shroud in 
the desert, that its motion was not such as would argue 
the direction of the march to be exactly upon the pavil- 35 



58 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS 

ion, but rather in a diagonal line, making an angle of 
full 45 degrees with that line in which the imperial 
cortege had been standing, and therefore with a distance 
continually increasing. Those who knew the country 
5 judged that the Kalmucks were making for a large 
fresh-water lake about seven or eight miles distant. 
They were right; and to that point the imperial cavahy 
was ordered up; and it was precisely in that spot,' and 
about three hours after, and at noonday on the 8th cf 

10 September, that the great Exodus of the Kalmuck Tar- 
tars was brought to a final close, and witli a scene of 
such memorable and hellish fury, as formed an appropri- 
ate winding up to an expedition in all its parts and 
details so awfully disastrous. The Emperor was not per- 

15 sonally present, or at least he saw whatever he did see 
from too great a distance to discriminate its individual 
features; but he records in his written memorial the 
report made to him of this scene by some of his own 
officers. 

20 41. The lake of Tengis, near the dreadful desert of 

' Kobi, lay in a hollow amongst hills of a moderate height, 
ranging generally from two to three thousand feet high. 
About eleven o'clock in the forenoon, the Chinese cav- 
alry reached the summit of a road which led through a 

35 cradle-like dip in the mountains right down upon the 
margin of the lake. From this pass, elevated about two 
thousand feet above the level of the water, they contin- 
ued to descend, by a very winding and difficult road, for 
an hour and a half; and during the whole of this descent 

30 they were compelled to be inactive spectators of the fiend- 
ish spectacle below. The Kalmucks, reduced by this time 
from about six hundred thousand souls to two hundred 
and sixty thousand, and after enduring for so long a time 
the miseries I have previously described — outrageous 

35 heat, famine, and the destroying scimitar of the Kir- 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS 59 

ghises and the Bashkirs — had for the last ten days been 
traversing a hideous desert, where no vestiges were seen of 
vegetation, and no drop of water could be found. Cam- 
els and men were already so overladen, that it was a mere 
impossibility that they should carry a tolerable sufR- 5 
ciency for the passage of this frightful wilderness. On 
the eighth day, the wretched daily allowance, which had 
been continually diminishing, failed entirely; and thus, 
for two days of insupportable fatigue, the horrors of 
thirst had been carried to the fiercest extremity. Upon 10 
this last morning, at the sight of the hills and the forest 
scenery, which announced to those who acted as guides 
the neighbourhood of the lake of Tengis, all the people 
rushed along with maddening eagerness to the antici- 
pated solace. The day grew hotter and hotter, the peo- 15 
pie more and more exhausted, and gradually, in the 
general rush forwards to the lake, all discipline and com- 
mand were lost — all attempts to preserve a rearguard were 
neglected — the wild Bashkirs rode in amongst the encum- 
bered people, and slaughtered them by wholesale, and 20 
almost without resistance. Screams and tumultuous 
shouts proclaimed the progress of the massacre; but 
none heeded — none halted; all alike, pauper or noble, 
continued to rush on with maniacal haste to the waters — 
all with faces blackened by the heat preying upon the 25 
liver, and with tongue drooping from the mouth. The 
cruel Bashkir was affected by the same misery, and man- 
ifested the same symptoms of his misery as the wretched 
Kalmuck; the murderer was oftentimes in the same 
frantic misery as his murdered victim — many indeed (an 30 
ordinary effect of thirst) in both nations had become 
lunatic, and in this state, whilst mere multitude and 
condensation of bodies alone opposed any check to the 
destroying scimitar and the trampling hoof, the lake 
was reached; and into that the whole vast body of ene- 35 



60 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS 

mies rushed, and together continued to rush, forgetful 
of all things at that moment but of one almighty 
instinct. This absorption of the thoughts in one mad- 
dening appetite lasted for a single half -hour; but in the 
5 next arose the final scene of parting vengeance. Far 
and wide the waters of the solitary lake were instantly 
dyed red with blood and gore : here rede a party of savage 
Bashkirs, hewing off heads as fast as the swathes fall 
before the mower's scythe; there stood unarmed Kal- 

10 mucks in a death-grapple with their detested foes, both 
up to the middle in water, and oftentimes both sinking 
together below the surface, from weakness or from 
struggles, and perishing in each other's arms. Did the 
Bashkirs at any point collect into a cluster for the sake 

15 of giving impetus to the assault ? Thither were the 
camels driven in fiercely by those who rode them, gener- 
ally women or boys; and even these quiet creatures were 
forced into a share of this carnival of murder, by tramp- 
ling down as many as they could strike prostrate with 

20 the lash of their fore-legs. Every moment the water grew 
more polluted; and yet every moment fresh myriads 
came up to the lake and rushed in, not able to resist 
their frantic thirst, and swallowing large draughts of 
water visibly contaminated Avith the blood of their 

25 slaughtered compatriots. Wheresoever the lake was 
shallow enough to allow of men raising their heads above 
the water, there, for scores of acres, w^ere to be seen all 
forms of ghastly fear, of agonising struggle, of spasm, 
of death, and the fear of death — revenge, and the lunacy 

30 of revenge — until the neutral spectators, of whom there 
were not a few, now descending the eastern side of the 
lake, at length averted their eyes in horror. This hor- 
ror, which seemed incapable of further addition, was, 
however, increased by an unexpected incident. The 

35 Bashkirs, beginning to perceive here and there the 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS 61 

approach of the Chinese cavalry, felt it prudent — where- 
soever they were sufficiently at leisure from the passions 
of the murderous scene — to gather into bodies. This 
was noticed by the governor of a small Chinese fort, 
built upon an eminence above the lake; and immediately 5 
he threw in a broadside, which spread havoc amongst the 
Bashkir tribe. As often as the Bashkirs collected into 
'^globes " and " turms,^^ as their only means of meeting 
the long lines of descending Chinese cavalry — so often 
did the Chinese governor of the fort pour in his exter- 10 
minating broadside; until at length the lake, at its lower 
end, became one vast seething caldron of human blood- 
shed and carnage. The Chinese cavalry had reached 
the foot of the hills: the Bashkirs, attentive to their 
movements, had formed; skirmishes had been fought: 15 
and, with a quick sense that the contest was hencefor- 
wards rapidly becoming hopeless, the Bashkirs and 
Kirghises began to retire. The pursuit was not as vig- 
orous as the Kalmuck hatred would have desired. But, 
at the same time, the very gloomiest hatred could not 20 
but find, in their own dreadful experience of the Asiatic 
deserts, and in the certainty that these wretched Bashkirs 
had to repeat that same experience a second time, for 
thousands of miles, as the price exacted by a retributory 
Providence for their vindictive cruelty — not the very 25 
gloomiest of the Kalmucks, or the least reflecting, but 
found in all this a retaliatory chastisement more com- 
plete and absolute than any which their swords and 
lances could have obtained, or human vengeance have 
devised, f 30 



42. Here ends the tale of the Kalmuck wanderings in 
the Desert; for any subsequent marches which awaited 
them were neither long nor painful. Every possible 
alleviation and refreshment for their exhausted bodies 35 



62 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS 

had been already provided by Kien Long with the most 
princely munificence; and lands of great fertility were 
immediately assigned to them in ample extent along 
the river Ily, not very far from the point at which they 
5 had first emerged from the wilderness of Kobi. Bat 
the beneficent attention of the Chinese Emperor may be 
best stated in his own words as translated into French 
by one of the Jesuit missionaries: — " La nation des Tor- 
gotes (savoir le-s Kalmuques) arriva k Ily, toute delabree, 

10 n'ayant ni de quoi vivre, ni de quoi se vetir. Je I'avais 
prevn; et j 'avals ordonne de faire en tout genre les pro- 
visions necessaires pour ponvoir les secourir prompte- 
ment: c'est ce qui a ete execute. On a fait la division 
des terres; et on a assigne a chaque famille une portion 

15 sufhsante pour ponvoir servir a son entretien, soit en la 
cultivant, soit en y nourissant des bestiaux. On a donne 
a chaque particulier des etoffes pour I'habiller, des grains 
pour se nourrir i:)endant I'espace d'une annee, des usten- 
siles pour le menage, et d'autres choses necessaires: et 

20 outre cela plusienrs onces d 'argent, pour se pourvoir de 
ce qu'on aurait pu oublier. On a designe des lieux par- 
ticuliers, fertiles en paturages; et on leur a donne des 
boeufs, montons, etc., pour qu'ils pussent dans la suite 
travailler par euxmemes a leur entretien et a leur bien 

25 etre." 

43. These are the words of the Emperor himself speak- 
ing in his own person of his own parental cares; but 
another Chinese, treating tlie same subject, records 
the munificence of this prince in terms which proclaim 

30 still more forcibly the disinterested generosity which 
prompted, and the delicate considerateness which con- 
ducted, this extensive bounty. He has been speaking of 
the Kalmucks, and he goes on thus : — " Lorsqu'ils arrive- 
rent sur nos frontieres (au nombre de plusieurs centaines 

35 de mille, quoique la fatigue extreme, la faim, la soif, et 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS 63 

toiites les autres incommoclites inseparables d'une tres 
longue et tres peniblo route en eussent fait perir presque 
autant), ils etaient reduits ^ la derniere misere; ils man- 
quaient de tout. II" [viz., PEmpereur, Kien Long] 
" leur fit preparer des logemens conformes a leur maniere 5 
de vivre; il leur fit distribuer des alimens et des habits; 
il leur fit donner des boeufs, des moutons, et des usten- 
siles, pour les mettre en etat de former des troupeaux et 
de cultiver la terre, et tout cela a ses propres frais, qui 
se sont montes a des sommes immenses, sans compter 10 
I'argent qu'il a donne a chaque chef-de-famille, pour 
pourvoir a la subsistance de sa femme et de ses enfans. " 
44. Thus, after their memorable year of misery, the 
Kalmucks were replaced in territorial possessions, and 
in comfort equal perhaps, or even superior, to that which 15 
they had enjoyed in Russia, and with superior political 
advantages. But, if equal or superior, their condition 
was no longer the same; if not in degree, their social 
prosperity had altered in quality; for, iustead of being 
a purely pastoral and vagrant people, they were now in 20 
circumstances which obliged them to become essentially 
dependent upon agriculture; and thus far raised in social 
rank, that, by the natural course of their habits and 
the necessities of life, they were effectually reclaimed 
from roving and from the savage customs connected 25 
with a half nomadic life. They gained also in politi- 
cal privileges, chiefly through the immunity from mili- 
tary service which their new relations enabled them to 
obtain. These were circumstances of advantage and 
gain. But one great disadvantage there was, amply to 30 
overbalance all other possible gain; the chances were 
lost or were removed to an incalculable distance for 
their conversion to Christianity, without which, in these 
times, there is no absolute advance possible on the path 
of true civilisation. 35 



64 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS 

45. One word remains to be said npon the iier^onal 
interests concerned in this great drama. The catas- 
trophe in this respect was remarkable and complete. 
Oubacha, with all his goodness and incapacity of sus- 

5 pecting, had, since the mysterious affair on the banks of 
the Torgan, felt his mind alienated from his cousin; he 
revolted from the man that would have murdered him; 
and he had displayed his caution so visibly as to provoke a 
reaction in the bearing of Zebek-Dorchi, and a displeas- 

10 ure which all his dissimulation could not hide. This 
had produced a feud, which, by keeping them aloof, had 
probably saved the life of Oubacha; for the friendship 
of Zebek-Dorchi was more fatal than his open enmity. 
After the settlement on the Ily this fead continued to 

15 advance, until it came under the notice of the Emperor, 
on occasion of a visit which all the Tartar chieftains 
made to his Majesty at his hunting lodge in 1772. The 
Emperor informed himself accurately of all the particu- 
lars connected witli the transaction — of all the rights 

20 and claims put forward — and of the way in which they 
would severally affect the interests of the Kalmuck 
people. The consequence was tliat he adopted the cause 
of Oubacha, and repressed the pretensions of Zebek- 
Dorchi, who, on his part, so deeply resented this dis- 

25 countenance to his ambitious projects, that, in conjunc- 
tion with other chiefs, he had the presumption even to 
weave nets of treason against the Emperor himself. Plots 
were laid, were detected, were baffled; counter-plots were 
constructed upon the same basis, and with the benefit of 

30 the opportunities thus offered. Finally, Zebek-Dorchi 
was invited to the imperial lodge, together with all his 
accomplices; and, under the skilful management of the 
Chinese nobles in the Emperor's establishment, the mur- 
derous artifices of these Tartar chieftains Avere made to 

35 recoil upon themselves; and the whole of them perished 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS 65 

by assassination at a great imperial banquet. For the 
Chinese morality is exactly of that kind which approves 
ill everything the lex talionis : — 

"Lex nee justior ulla est (as they think) 
Quam necis artifices arte perire sua." 5 

46. So perished Zebek-Dorchi, the author and origin- 
ator of the great Tartar Exodus. Oubacha, meantime, 
and his people, were gradually recovering from the 
effects of their misery, and repairing their losses. Peace 
and prosperity, under the gentle rule of a fatherly lord 10 
paramount, re-dawned upon the tribes: their household 
lares, after so harsh a translation to distant climes, 
found again a happy re-instatement in what had in fact 
been their primitive abodes: they found themselves 
settled in quiet sylvan scenes, rich in all the luxuries of 15 
life, and endowed with the perfect loveliness of Arca- 
dian beauty. Bat from the hills of this favoured land, 
and even from the level grounds as they approached its 
western border, they still look out upon that fearful wil- 
derness which once beheld a nation in agony — the utter 20 
extirpation of nearly half a million from amongst its 
numbers, and, for the remainder, a storm of misery so 
fierce that in the end (as happened also at Athens during 
the Peloponnesian War from a different form of mis- 
ery) very many lost their memory; all records of their 25 
past life were wiped out as with a sponge — utterly erased 
and cancelled: and many others lost their reason; some 
in a gentle form of pensive melancholy, some in a more 
restless form of feverish delirium and nervous agitation, 
and others in the fixed forms of tempestuous mania, 30 
raving frenzy, or moping idiocy. Two great commem- 
orative monuments arose in after years to mark the 
depth and permanence of the awe — the sacred and rev- 
erential grief with which all persons looked back upon 



66 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS 

the dread calamities attached to the year of the tiger — 
all who had either personally shared in those calamities, 
and had themselves drunk from that cup of sorrow, 
or who had effectually been made witnesses to their 
5 results, and associated with their relief: two great monu- 
ments; one embodied in the religious solemnity, enjoined 
by the Dalai Lama, called in the Tartar language a 
Romcmang — that is, a national commemoration, with 
music the most rich and solemn, of all the souls who 

10 departed to the rest of Paradise from the afflictions of 
the Desert (this took place about six years after the 
arrival in China); secondly, another, more durable and 
more commensurate to the scale of the calamity and to 
the grandeur of this national Exodus, in the mighty 

15 columns of granite and brass erected by the Emperor 
Kien Long near the banks of the Ily. These columns 
stand upon the very margin of the steppes ; and they 
bear a short but emphatic inscription ^ to the following 
effect: — 

20 By the Will of God, 

Here, upon the Brink of these Deserts, 

Wliich from this Point begin and stretch away 

Pathless, treeless, waterless. 

For thousands of miles — and along the margins of many mighty 

25 Nations, 

* This inseription has been slightly altered in one or two phrases, 
and particularly in adapting to the Christian era the Emperor's 
expressions for the year of the original Exodus from China and 
the retrogressive Exodus from Russia. With respect to the des- 
ignation adopted for the Russian Emperor, either it is built upon 
some confusion between him and the Byzantine Caesars, as though 
the former, being of the same religion with the latter (and occupy- 
ing in part the same longitudes, though in different latitudes), 
liiight be considered as his modern successor; or else it refers 
simply to the Greek form of Christianity professed by the Russian 
Emperor and Church. 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS 67 

■Rested from their hibours and from great afflictions, 

Under the sliadow of the Chinese Wall, 

And by the favour of Kien Long, God's Lieutenant upon 

Earth, The ancient Children of the Wilderness— the Torgote 

Tartars — 5 

Flying before the wrath of the Grecian Czar, 
Wandering Sheep who had strayed away from the Celestial 

Empire in the year 1616, 
But are now mercifully gathered again, after infinite sorrow, 

Into the fold of their forgiving Sheplierd. 10 

Hallow^ed be the spot for ever, 

and 

Hallowed be the day— September 8, 1771 ] 

Amen. 



NOTES 

[Remark. — The following notes are (1) explanatory, where infor- 
mation is not easily to be had ; (2) directive, where information lies 
ready to hand in ordinary books of reference, and where the student 
may be led into criticism of his own. Such notes as obviate refer- 
ence on the part of the student, or discourage his criticism by com- 
pletely forestalling it, are deprecated by the editor as a hindrance 
in education. 

By " ordinary books of reference '" are meant the following : 

(A) A good dictionary. Every school may be presumed to have at 
least a Webster, a Worcester, or a Stormonth. Many schools pro- 
vide also one of the larger dictionaries, the Century, the Standard, 
or the Imperial. Therefore many words are inserted in the notes 
with a mere query, the object of the editor being to induce some 
appreciation of the nicety of De Quincey's diction by the only 
adequate means — personal investigation. Consideration of etymol- 
ogy is suggested only where it appeals to the student's knowledge of 
common classical roots, prefixes, and suffixes. Some teachers may 
find it worth while to push this farther. The study of the diction 
will receive additional profit from the use of a good book of syno- 
nyms, for instance Smith's Sxjnonyms Discriminated. 

(B) A good manual of universal history. The following one-vol- 
ume manuals are in common use: 

(a) Fisher, George P. : Outlines of Universal History (New York 
and Chicago, The American Book Co.). This is a continuous sum- 
mary narrative, with dates, maps, charts, etc. 

(b) Ploetz, Carl : Epitome of Ancient, Jlediceval, and Modern His- 
tory, translated, with extensive additions, by William H. Tilling- 
hast (Boston, Houghton, Mifflin & Co.). This is a classified date- 
book, with brief, clear summaries. 

(c) Andrews, E. Benjamin : Brief Institutes of General History 
(Boston, Silver, Burdette & Co.). This is narrative, by periods, each 
period prefaced by a brief bibliography. 

{d) Labberton, Robert H. : New Historical Atlas and General 
History (New York, Townsend MacCoun). The chief value of this 



NOTES 69 

book is in its maps. The summaries of periods are briefer than in 
the other books. There are brief bibliographies of each period. 

{a) and {h), Fisher and Ploetz, are referred to by page in the fol- 
lowing notes. Such a manual may be supplemented, or its place 
may often be taken ; either by one of the briefer cyclopaedias — John- 
son's, Chambers's, Appleton's, or the International; or by the ordi- 
nary manuals of Greek, Roman, and English history respectively. 
References are also made, sparingly, to the classic histories of Gib- 
bon, Grote, Josephus, etc., to stimulate such students as have access 
to a good library. 

(C) A good atlas. Some of the places mentioned in the narrative 
are obscure, but most will be found even in the larger school geog- 
raphies. All doubtful points receive comment in the notes. A 
rough clue to the route of the Kalmucks, which was, of course, wide, 
and far from straight, may be gained by drawing a line from Astra- 
khan at the mouth of the Volga to the northern end of the Caspian 
Sea, thence to the northern end of the Aral Sea, and finally to the 
borders of China at Lake Balkash. The stages of the flight are 
marked, as De Quincey says, by "the central rivers of Asia" — the 
Ural (or Juik), the Emba (or Jemba), and the Irgitch.] 

^ 1. The first sentence expresses the subject both of this paragraph 
and of the whole piece. 

[Words to examine: romantic (3 11), Jar^ar/c (compare harharous) 
(3 14), leemiiig (3 19).] 

3 5. Tartar, more properly Tatar. See p. xxvi., and consult a 
cyclopaedia. The term is no longer very specific. As ordinarily 
used, it refers to the Mongols. Doubtless the proverb about catching 
a Tartar, i. e., getting a captive too strong to manage, is one of the 
many echoes of the terror inspired by the great Mongol invasions. 
See page xxv., and the note on 30 11. 

3 5. Steppes. The Russian steppes correspond roughly to the 
North American prairies and the South American pampas, in that 
they are treeless and often grassy ; but in degree of vegetation they 
are more like the Scotch heaths. 

3 6. Terminus a quo. Is anything gained by the Latin phrases ? 
Find exact English equivalents for both, and compare 61 8. 

3 8. Christian, Pagan. Compare 11 13 and the note thereon. 

3 23. Miltonic images. Does this mean simply Milton's images, 
or is there a kind of image that may be called Miltonic and, if so, 
what kind ? 



70 NOTES 

4 1. The solitary hand. See Paradise Lost, book vi., lines 139, 
834; and compare book x., 431. 

^ 2. The revolt may challenge comparison with other great na- 
tional catastrophes as to its dramatic capabilities. 

[Words to examine : catastrophes (4 6 ; etymology ? equivalent to 
calamities 9 Compare 32 34, 64 2), collation (4 10), sanctions 
(4 14), anabasis (4 24, etymology?), katahasis (4 30), oracle (4 31).] 

4 18. " Veiiice Preserved,'' by Thomas Otway, appeared in 1682. 

4 19. The " Fiesco " of Schiller was written in 1782. The scene 
is laid at Venice in the sixteenth century. 

4 24-27. These references may be explained with the aid of the 
common histories of Greece and of Rome. Their place and bearing 
will be better understood by reference to Fisher or to Ploetz, as fol- 
lows : 

4 24. Camhyses, Fisher, p. 67; Ploetz, p. 27. 

4 25. Cyrus, Fisher, p. 109; Ploetz, p. 29. 

4 27. Crassus, Fisher, p. 103; Ploetz, pp. 30, 140. 

4 27. Julia7i, Fisher, p. 194; Ploetz, pp. 160, 188. De Quincey 
evidently refers to Julian's expedition against the Persians, re- 
counted in chapter xxiv. of Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman 
Empire. 

4 30. Napoleon. Consult a cyclopaedia, a history of modern Eu- 
rope, or Fisher, p. 530; Ploetz, p. 474. 

4 33. Great Scriptural Exodus. Cite the chapters in which this 
is recorded. 

II 3. The story has even great scenical possibilities. 
[Words to examine : invests {b 4, etymology?), scenical {o 8), tragi- 
cal (5 23, terrible?), authentic (5 28).] 

5 14. Wolga, pronounced and usually written in English Volga 
(De Quincey follows Bergmann's German spelling) ; the largest river 
of Russia. Consult a map. The Kalmucks were near the southern 
course of the Volga, not far from its mouths. 

H 4. The situation as to the two main persons involved is as 
follows. 

[Words to examine: quality (6 2), humanised (6 8), exasperated 
(6 12, etymology?), surveillance (6 16), dilemma (Q2'S), kindness, affa- 
bility (7 20), pretensions (7 25). Compare (10 24), dissimulation 
■ — hypocrisy — perfidy (8 5).] 

5 34, Kalmucks. See page xxv. Assumed the sceptre. Does this 
expression seem a trifle too grand ? Have you noticed any parallels 
in this piece ? 



NOTES 71 

6 2. Klian is a Tartar word for sovereign prince, as in Genghis 
Khan, Kubla Khan. In earlier English it often appears as Cham. 
"The great Cham of Tartary " is a common expression. 

G 13. Nationality — nnparalleled. De Quincey probably refers to 
the strong racial peculiarities of the Mongols (see p. xxvi.), per- 
haps also to their great military achievements. 

6 17. Lord j^aramount (compare 65 10), a feudal term. In the 
feudal system all the land of a country theoretically belonged to the 
king or emperor, who was lord paramount ; i.e., lord over all other 
lords. De Quincey very likely caught the word from Hooker, who 
says of the Pope, in A Discourse of Justification : "Let him no 
longer count himselfe lord j^n^'aniount over the princes of the 
world." (Quoted in Skeat's Etymological Dictionary.) 

6 17. Czar, or Tsar, i.e., emperor. By some authorities the 
word is derived ultimately, like the German Kaiser, from the Latin 
Caesar, the cognomen of the great Caius Julius. The feminine is 
Czarina, empress, used at 12 24 and elsewhere throughout the piece. 

18. Natural unamiableness does not seem warranted. 

1[ 5. The first step in the plot of Zebek Dorchi was to have the 
government of the Kalmucks so reorganized as to give him control. 

[Words to examine : sagacious (8 12) ; hoodwinlced (8 22, etymol- 
ogy ? original application ?) ; soliciting (8 31) ; covertly (8 35, ety- 
mology ?) ; balance of power (9 6, explain this common figure) ; sub- 
ordinate — co-ordinate (9 10, etymology ?) ; passion (10 6)]. 

8 5. 3fachiavelian. Consult the Century Dictionary, or a cyclo- 
paedia under the heading 3Iach iavelli. 

8 15. Elizabeth Petrowna. See 18 23. 

8 28. Tcherhask, one of the most important towns in the country 
of the Don Cossacks, is on the River Don, near its mouth, and so not 
far from the Sea of Azov. 

8 29. Sixty-five tents ; i.e., sixty-five families. Among the Mon- 
gol nomads this is a common method of counting. 

9 1. Point of that ivedge. The proverb is usually heard, "the 
thin end of the wedge," or "the entering wedge." What is the 
allusion ? 

9 5. Re-organized. See Appendix C, p. 91. 

9 24. 300 roubles. The rouble, or ruble, is a Russian coin worth, 
at standard value, seventy-seven cents. The word is cognate with 
rupee, the standard coin (two shillings) of British India. 

^ G. Having accomplished this re-organization, he dared to con- 
cert the revolt of the whole Kalmuck people from Russia. 



72 NOTES 

[Words to examine: exchequer (10 15); consanguinity (10 25, ety- 
mology ?) ; colossal (11 6); potentate (11 11); autocrat (12 4, etymo- 
logy ?); translatio7i (12 8).] 

119. Behemoth. See t/oZ/ xl. 15. Whether the animal meant is 
some species of the elephant or of the. hippopotamus is not certain. 
Bergmann's figure (vol. i., p. 154) is of a giant and a dwarf. Why 
is De Quincey's more effective? 

11 11. Three hundred languages. It is easy to think of Russia as 
only a European power. Examine on the map the extent of the Rus- 
sian territory, observe that it is quite as much Asiatic as Euro- 
pean, and the basis of De Quincey's statement will appear. No 
other nation in all history has combined so many races or in such 
numbers. 

11 13. " Lion ramp " is quoted from Milton's Samson Agonistes, 
line 139. 

11 13. "Baptized and infidel.^'' The allusion is to Para(i/se iyos^, 
book i., line 582; but Milton says "baptized or infidel." Examine 
the other quotations in this piece as to their accuracy. Does the 
result seem to indicate anything more than that De Quincey habitu- 
ally quoted from memory without verification ? 

Infidel, from the time of the Crusades came to be applied especially 
to the Mohammedans ; and the antithesis baptized and infidel re- 
minds one forcibly how religious differences emphasized the hetero- 
geneity of the immense Russian empire. 

11 15. " Barbaric East " is probably an inaccurate recollection of 
Paradise Lost, book ii., lines 3 and 4. 

1121. The unity of a well-laid tragic fable ; i.e., the unity of a 
well-planned tragic plot. For a definition of literary unity in gen- 
eral see page xxxiii. The allusion here is to the so-called three 
dramatic unities: the unity of action, according to which a drama 
should unfold one main action, or plot, to which all other lines of 
action should be subordinate; the unity of time, according to which 
the action should be accomplished in one day; and the unity of place, 
according to which the scene should not be changed. These are also 
called the Aristotelian unities; but Aristotle (in his Poe^tcsHnsists 
only on the first. The other two, though occasionally kept with 
striking effect in all ages of the drama, have had continued prevalence 
only on the Greek stage, and the French stage of the seventeenth 
and eighteenth centuries. Compare 4 16. 

12 26. Kien Long, "Emperor of China from 1735 to 1796, was 
the fourth Chinese Emperor of the Mantchoo-Tartar dynasty, and a 



NOTES '^'3 

man of the highest reputation for ability and accomplishment." 
Masson (see Fisher, p. 449 ; Ploetz, p. 444). His portrait appears as 
the frontispiece to the report of the Earl of Macartney's embassy/ a 
book that De Quincey seems to have read with some attention. The 
Emperor was a patron of letters, and himself a poet. 

12 27. Respect for the head of their religion. Tliis consideration 
is mentioned by Father Amiot (see Appendix B, p. 89). China con- 
tained at this time a large proportion of Lamaists, who enjoyed the 
more favour as the reigning dynasty was Tartar. 

12 28. China. Western nations incline to think contemptuously of 
China, and it is now declining, perhaps falling. But it still contains 
an amazing proportion of the population and wealth of the world, 
and the farther back one goes in history, the more important appears 
the Celestial Empire. Even to-day nothing is more striking than the 
perpetuation of its traditions from the remotest antiquity, and the 
impenetrable pride of the nation that still thinks itself the greatest 
in the world. De Quincey's interest in China is one instance of the 
breadth of his sympathies. In 1857 he published a pamphlet on the 
relations of the empire to England. 

12 30. The great Chinese Wall (consult a cyclopaedia), said to have 
been finished in the third century, has become a proverb of exclu- 
siveness. The account of the embassy of the Earl of Macartney 
shows plans, sections, and elevations of this wall (plates 23 and 24), 
and a detailed account of its appearance and construction (vol. ii., 
pp. 178-199.) See Ploetz, p. 32. 

*f 7. The accomplices and the time were duly arranged. 

[Words to examine: substantial (13 25) ; pontiff {1^ 29) ; facility, 
profound (13 34., put the phrase into simpler words) ; of course 
(14 19); hostages (14 30); cogent (14 31, etymology ?); ^«if (15 23).] 

13 17. Great Lama. A lama is a Mongol priest. The reverence 
in which the great Lamas are held among the Kalmucks is due to 
the Buddhist doctrine of re-incarnation, according to which these 
higher priests are living Buddhas, successive appearances of the god 
in the flesh. 

14 9. Only, properly placed ? 

14 10. The Dalai-Lama might be called the Lamaist Pope. 
Theoretically co-ordinate with the Bandchan (or Bantschin) Lama, 
he is practically superior, has temporal as well as spiritual control, 
and, in short, occupies much the same position as the great Popes 
of the middle ages. The great temporal power of the Dalai-Lama 
1 See Appendix A, Staunton. 



74 NOTES 

dates from 1643, the year of the revolution overthrowing the party 
of the " red lamas " and exalting that of the " yellow lamas." ^ 

14 11. Tibet, or Thibet (consult a map). The seat of the Dalai- 
Lama is at Lassa (Lhassa). Father Hue thus describes the palace : 

"The palace of the Tale Lama well deserves the celebrity it 
enjoys. Toveards the northern part of the town, at a small dis- 
tance from it, there rises a rocky mountain of no great elevation, 
and conical in form ; bearing the name of Buddha-La, that is, the 
Divine Mountain, and on this grand site the adorers of the Tale 
Buddha have reared a palace to their living and incarnate divinity. 
This palace consists of a cluster of temples, varying in size and 
beauty ; the central temple has an elevation of four stories ; the 
dome is entirely covered with plates of gold, and is surrounded by a 
peristyle of which the columns are likewise gilded. Here the Tale 
Lama has fixed his residence, and from the height of his sanctuary 
can contemplate, on days of high solemnities, his countless worship- 
pers, thronging the plain and prostrating themselves at the base of 
the Sacred Mountain. The secondary palaces grouped around 
accommodate a crowd of Lamas whose continued occupation is to 
serve and wait on the living Buddha. Two fine avenues, bordered 
with magnificent trees, lead from Lha-Ssa to this temple, and there 
may be seen a multitude of pilgrims unrolling between their fingers 
the long Buddhist rosaries, and the Lamas of the Court splendidly 
dressed, and mounted on horses richly caparisoned. There is con- 
tinual motion in the vicinity of the Buddha-La, but the multitude 
is generally silent and serious." — (vol. ii., p. 148.) 

Lassa is now closed to foreigners. 

•JT 8. To preclude suspicion, Oubacha was persuaded to contribute 
even more than his usual contingent for the war with Turkey. 

[Words to examine : vassalage (15 30); coiitingent (15 31); pre- 
sentiment — misgiving (16 2)]. 

15 28. War raged. "The war was begun in 1768, when Mus- 
tapha III. was Sultan of Turkey ; and it was continued till 1774." 
— Masson. See Ploetz, p. 412. 

15 29. The Sultan. The title applies to any Mohammedan sov- 
ereign, but especially, as here, to the Emperor of Turkey. In earlier 
English the word appears as Soldan or Sowdan. 

10 2. But that, an error for simple but. Compare 36 26. 

*f[ 9. With this array Oubacha gained a memorable victory. 

* Howorth, vol. i., pp. 515-517. The names of the parties refer, of course, to their 
costumes. 



NOTES 75 

16 34. Victory. See Appendix C, p. 93. 

^ 10. But unfortunately the victory remained unhonoured by the 
Empress. 

[Words to examine : marshal (17 8); accommodation (17 2{i); pre- 
occupied (17 32); voucJiers (19 1)\ presumption (19 9)]. 

17 9. Paladin, "a term originally derived from tlie counts Pala- 
tine, or of the palace, who were the highest dignitaries in the 
Byzantine court, and thence used generally for a lord or chieftain, 
and by the Italian romantic poets for a knight-errant." — Internctr- 
tioncd Cyclopcedia. Consult one of the larger dictionaries. 

17 24. Ukase, "an edict or order, legislative or administrative, 
emanating from the Russian government." — Century Dictionary. 

18 3. Ugly, stupid, and filthy harbaricms. " If these nomads were 
despised as barbarians by their cultivated neighbours, they had too 
great an opinion of their own descent and religion to feel affronted." 
— Bergmann, vol, i., p. 147. 

18 7. Barbarous religion. See p. xxviii. 

18 8. Kalmuck priesthood. See notes on 13 17 and 14 10. 

18 15. Bashkirs. Consult a cyclopaedia. The Bashkirs are partly 
Mongol — i.e., of the same race as the Kalmucks, partly Finnish — 
i.e., of the ancient race of the northern provinces of Russia. They 
are Mohammedans, and inferior in intellect. 

18 22. Elizabeth Petrowna (i7il-17G2); Catherine II. (1762-1796). 
See Ploetz, p. 411, and, for Catherine, a cyclopa}dia. 

1[ 11. Even had the victory been honoured, Zebek-Dorchi had taken 
secure measures to prevent any weakening on the part of Oubacha. 

[Words to examine: ghostly (20 9); effectually (20 17); derived 
(20 29); collateral (20 29, etymology "i)-, facility (21 4).] 

19 18. Weseloff. See l^'si 35. 

19 29. Dark and mysterious rites, etc. See Appendix C, p. 92. 

Tl 12, The plan of revolt was finally divulged to the Kalmucks 
through the feint of an expedition against the Kirghises. 

[Words to examine: rhetoric (22 23); circumscribe (22 34); en 
masse (23 14).] 

21 31. 0?ie vast co)iflagration. Compare 27 29 and Appendix C, 
p. 92. 

21 33. Huts. Rather tents (compare 8 29), They are made of 
felt and are called yurts. 

22 15. Kirghises, Kirghiz or Kirghis. Consult a cyclopcTdia. 
These people are partly Mongol— resemliling the Kalmucks strongly 
in looks— partly Tartar, speaking a Turkish dialect. They are, 



76 NOTES 

perhaps, the least civilized of the nomad tribes of the steppes, and 
have hardly even now been cured of their predatory habits. For 
centuries they have divided themselves into the Great Horde, the 
Middle Horde, and the Little Horde, and they have given their name 
to the steppes as far as China. 

22 17. Immemorial custom. This is perhaps based on a remark 
of Bergmann (ii., 191): " On a summons to war every tent is 
bound to furnish one man." See Appendix C on this whole para- 
graph. 

23 1. Sarepta. The point of the reference to this particular town 
is that it was a colony of industrious Germans, having been founded 
in 1764 oi- 17G5 by the Moravian Brethren. It is situated on the 
Sarpa, near where that stream empties into the Volga. The nearest 
large town is Tsaritsin, fifteen miles to the north. 

The reference is not in Bergmann. It makes specific, and there- 
fore more striking, an allusion of Bergmann's (i., 182) to " German 
immigrants." 

^ 13. The representations of Zebek-Dorchi to the Kalmuck chiefs 
were too plausible to be withstood. 

[Words to examine : audience (23 35 and 24 13); seduction (24 5); 
conscious (24 10).] 

24 7. Teniha, an error for Jemba (or Emba), a river rising on the 
west side of the Muchajar (Mougaldchares, 39 14) Mountains (about 
48° N., 58° E.), and flowing S.W. into the Caspian Sea (at about 
47° N., 53" E.) 

•f[ 14. The result was immediate and universal preparation for 
revolt. 

^ 15. The Imperial Commissioner Kichinskoi played into the 
hands of the Kalmucks by his stupid and arrogant vanity. 

[Words to examine : arrogant (25 1, etymology ?) ; infatuation 
(25 23).] 

24 25. Kichinskoi. In all the earlier historians, except Berg- 
mann, the tyranny of Kichinskoi is alleged as the moving cause of 
the revolt. 

U 16. The warning despatches of the Governor of Astrakhan to 
the court soon proved too true. 

[Words to examine : crisis (25 35), bigotry (26 8).] 

26 1. Governor of Astrachan. Astrachan (Astrakhan) is a large 
town on the Volga, about thirty miles from its mouth. Its com- 
merce is mainly in the products of the immense sturgeon fisheries of 
the Caspian. 



NOTES 77 

IT 17. The revolt be^an with the destruction of the Kalmuck vil- 
lages. (See Appendix C.) 

27 3. 5th of January. Compare Appendix B, p. 89. De Quin- 
cey follows Bergmann. 

27 7. Troops and squadrons. Examine the military terms 
throughout this paragraph, 

If 18. The failure of the Western Kalmucks to join saved the 
neighbouring Russians from a terrible vengeance. 

[Words to examine : valedictory (28 6) ; aggravate (28 25) ; prac- 
tised (29 11).] 

28 11. And such treatment, etc. What does this mean? 
^ 19. (Subject in the first sentence.) 

Tl 20. The horror of this great migration is hardly paralleled in 
history. * 

30 10. Sudden inroads. "Since the centuries of the tribal 
migrations, none of those overwhelming hordes had turned back to 
its old fatherland until the Kalmucks made an exception." — Berg- 
mann, i., 141. This remark of Bergmann's puts the Kalmuck revolt 
in a wrong light, but may have suggested the train of reflection in 
this paragraph. 

30 11. Huns. See Fisher, pp. 196, 204, 209; Ploetz, pp. 170, 
173; and a cyclopaedia under the headings Huns and Attila. 

30 11. Avars: Fisher, pp. 221, 223; Ploetz, pp. 175, 185. Mongol 
Tartars : Fisher, pp. 283, 351 ; Ploetz, p. 240 ; cyclopaedia, under 
the headings Mongols, Tartars, Genghis Khan, Tamerlane; and 
pp. XXV., xxvi. of the introduction to this book. By some authori- 
ties the Huns are classed as Mongols. It seems more probable, how- 
ever, that the Huns and Avars were both Turanian peoples, the 
ancient Scythians. Gibbon (chapter xxvi. and note) makes the com- 
parison with the Huns, and his note may have led, not only to this 
comparison, but to the whole piece. 

30 17. French retreat. See 4 30, and the note thereon. 

30 22. Vicds of ivrafh. The allusion is to the Book of Revela- 
tion, especially chapters xv. and xvi, De Quincey uses the same 
figure in The English JIail Coach, "like the opening of apocalyptic 
vials." 

31 7. Utterly unequal. See note on 65 21. 

31 19. Pestilence — Athens. Fisher, p. 103. The famous descrip- 
tion of this is in chapters xlvii. to liv. of the second book of Thucy- 

1 From this point on, the paragraph summaries and the noting of words for exami- 
nation are left, except for occasional references, to the teacher and the student. 



78 NOTES 

dides. A full and interesting account is given in Grote's History of 
Greece, chapter xlix. 

81 21. London— Charles II. This is the Great Plague (1665). 
See Fisher, p. 459, and Defoe's Journal of the Plague Year in this 
series. 

31 28. Siege of Jerusalem. Fisher, p. 180 ; Ploetz, p. 152. The 
famous account of this is in books v. and vi. of The Jewish War of 
Joseph us. 

■JT 21 gives the clue to De Quincey's conception and treatment. 
Compare pp. xxxi., xxxii. 

32 6. The River Jaik is now called the Ural. 

32 85. Climax, etymology ? 

33 16. Acharnement 9 What is gained by the French word ? 
mH 23-27. See Appendix C. 

33 34. Cossacks (Kazaks, Kasaks). Consult a cyclopaedia. Their 
race is disputed, but seems to be mainly Russian. They were an 
independent, democratic people, but for centuries have served as 
Russian cavalry, especially on the frontiers. Mazeppa was a Cossack 
chief. Note in Tennyson's Charge of the Light Brigade, " Cossack 
and Russian reeled at the sabre-stroke." 

34 5. Fisheries upon the Caspian. Many thousands are still en- 
gaged in these fisheries. The line formed by the Caspian Sea and 
the Ural Mountains is regarded as the boundary between Europe and 
Asia. See a cyclopaedia under the heading Caspian, 

34 8. Koulagina. It is difficult, and not important, to locate 
this certainly. It was one of a line of stockade-forts along the Ural. 
Andree's Atlas (plate 71) marks, about fifty miles from the mouth of 
the river, a town which appears, in the Russian form, as Kulas- 
chinskaja. 

34 8. Invested, simimofied 9 

34 10. Feio light pieces of artillery. See Appendix C, p. 93. 

84 29. Ouloss (ulus). Bergmann (i., 194, note) describes it as a 
large tribal company, under the command of a khan, a prince, or 
even a simple noble (saissang). 

34 30. Feka-Zechorr, apparently an error for Bergmann's Jeka- 
^echor;'. Cf. Temba for Jemba (24 7). 

35 2. Evasion ? 

3,0 8. Torgai. See note on 40 15. 

36 30. Unexampled triumph is difficult to understand. It is, per- 
haps, mere exaggeration of phrase. 

37 5. " Trashed.''' Does it seem worth while to use a word that 



NOTES 79 

requires a foot note ? Cf. 5G 10. The passage from Bondvca is in 
act i., scene 1, line 49 : — 

'■'■ Nennius. And what did you then, Carataeh ? 
Caratach. 1 fled too ; 

But not so fast, — your jewel had been lost then, 
Young Hengo there ; he trasli'd me, Xennius : 
For, when your fears out-run him, then slept I, 
And in the head of all the Roman fury 
Took him, and with my tough belt to my back 
I buckled him ; behind him my sure shield ; 
And then I followed." 
Dyce, in a note on this passage, says the noun trash is a hunting 
term for a clog tied round the neck of a too-forward dog. 

37 24. Drawing the tent-ropes, drawing the tent-pegs ? AVeseloff, 
or at any rate Bergmann. has not recorded this. In fact, the infer- 
ence from Bergmann is that WeselofI did not "record" at all, but 
recounted his story by word of moutli. 

38 30. Seventy thousand. For the numbers involved in the revolt, 
see the note on 65 21. 

38 33. In reversion ? 

39 1. Large masses, j^oiver-fid division. Compare Appendix C, 
p. 93. 

39 13, Ouchim. This defile is not easily located. It is not in the 
gazetteei-s, nor on such maps as were accessible to the editor. 

39 14, The hills of 3Iougaldchares (Mugodschar or Muchajar 
Mountains) are a lower continuation of the Ural range, and extend 
from the latter sout Invest toward the Aral Sea. 

40 4. Polish dragoons. The adjective refers not to the nationality, 
but to the equipment of the cavalry. Thus there was at one time 
in the French army a corps called Chasseurs d'Afrique, and in both 
the French army and that of the iSTorthern troops in our own Civil 
War a corps of Zouaves. Similarly, at 55 12, De Quincey speaks of 
yagers among the Chinese troops. Perhaps both Polish dragoon and 
yager were well-known military terms in 1837. At any rate there is 
no gain in scrutinizing them too closely, since the context in both 
cases seems to be pure invention. 

^ 28. 40 14. Irgitch (Irghiz, Irgheez, Irgiz). The name is common 
to several rivers. The one meant is apparently the Irgiz-Koom, 
which rises on the eastern side of the Muchajar Mountains (39 14) 
and flows southeast into Lake Chalkar (Tschalkar Tengis), a large 
bodv of water northeast of the Aral Sea. 



80 NOTES 

40 15. Torgau and Torgai are the spellings used by De Quincey, 
commonly the former. Turgai is the accepted form. The name 
applies: (1) to a district; (2) to the chief town of that district (as 
apparently at o 20); (3) to a river, the Kara-Turgai (as here and at 
3G 8), which flows, with many windings (N.W., W., S.W.), in a 
general westerly direction, and eventually makes connection, through 
a chain of lakes, with the Irgiz-Koom. The town Turgai, which 
gives the best clue, and stands about midway of the river's course, is 
about 49° N., 63° E., and almost due north of Lake Chalkar. 

40 18. Large Russian army. Cf. 39 1 and Appendix C, p. 93. 
^[ 29. 41 15. Concurrently, force of the etymology ? 

41 19. Artillery. It does not appear that the artillery existed, 
except in De Quincey's imagination. 

41 27. Sad solitudes of the steppes. The repetition of the initial 
consonant is called alliteration. 

41 31. Aggravations, etymology ? 

42 13. A circle, etc. This striking picture is one of the amplifica- 
tions of De Quincey 's fancy. 

U 30. 43 2. See note on 65 21. 

43 5. Only the camels. The statement is Bergmann's ; the fine 
image that follows, De Quincey's. Adust, etymology ? 

43 15. The tears of Xerxes. For the great event referred to con- 
sult a history of Greece, or Fisher, p. 95; Ploetz, p. 58. The strik- 
ing incident of the tears is recorded in the seventh book of Herod- 
otus, section 45. The fullest account in English of the expedition 
of Xerxes is in Grote's History of Greece, chapter xxxviii. 

43 21. Formally delated, like minutes of council {\^ \b), sounds 
somewhat too formal as applied to the Kalmucks. 

43 25. Scape-goat, etymology ? See the sixteenth chapter of 
Leviticus. 

44 14. Presumption ? 

44 20. Return to their old allegiance — 1616. This is the date set 
by Bergmann (i., 144) for the swearing of allegiance to Russia. The 
revolt from China he puts "at the beginning of the sixteenth 
century." Howorth (vol. i., p. 561) supports De Quincey's date, and 
thus removes the objection of Professor Masson (appendix to volume 
vii. of his collective edition). 

44 24. Land of Promise — house of hondage. What is the allusion 
in these scriptural phrases ? Compare Deuteronomy viii. 14 and ix. 
28; Exodus ^^. 2. 

^ 31. 44 34. Orsk is on the River Or (from which it takes its 



NOTES 81 

name), near where it joins the Ural, and at the southern end of the 
Ural chain proper. 

45 1. Oriembourg (Orenburg), not the large town of that name 
(52° N., 55° E.), which is west of Orsk, but a fort (50° N., 64° E.) on 
the Turgai. 

45 15. Sinister, etymology ? 

IT 33. See Appendix C. 

45 20. Upon this fact transpiring. Is this grammatically cor- 
rect ? 

IT 84. 48 5. Hetman (or ataman), a Cossack name for a leader or 
chief. 

IT 35. 51 5. Desultors. See desultor in a Latin dictionary, and 
also in a dictionary of classical antiquities. 

51 29. Boating, now commonly spelled doting. 

IF 37. 52 15. ''More felt;' etc. Othello, act v., scene 2 (near the 
end of the play). 

52 28. A croivded population, possible, perhaps, but certainly not 
probable. Consult a map. 

53 4. ""Fierce varieties,'" a reminiscence perhaps of Paradise 
Lost, book ii., line 599, perhaps of vii., 272. 

53 6. Post equitem, etc., a famous line from Horace, in the first 
ode of book iii., line 40. 

53 7. The undying ivorm, an allusion to Isaiah Ixvi. 24. Com- 
pare also S. Mark ix. 48. 

53 16. ''From rnorn to dewy eve.'' This familiar quotation is 
from Paradise Lost, book i., line 742. 

II" 38. 54 28. A gorgeous hunting lodge. Since the whole scene is 
imaginary, it is, perhaps, hardly worth while to inquire into the 
location of this lodge. But from the reference at 64 17 it is to be 
inferred that De Quincey meant the summer palace at Ge Ho (or Zhe 
Hoi), which is specified by Father Amiot as the place of the audience 
to the Kalmuck chiefs. This seems the more probable from the fact 
that Ge Ho is described (vol. ii., p. 206), in the account of the Earl 
of Macartney's embassy (see Appendix A, Staunton), Mith plates 
(8 and 9) showing the location beyond the Great Wall and the route 
thither from Pekin. But Ge Ho, instead of being a lodge in the 
forest, is a town with a palace and a large temple. 

54 35. He had arrived. The Emperor s presence is an unwar- 
ranted and improbable assumption. 

55 12. Yagers, from the German /a^/er, a huntsman ; apparently 
a military term of De Quincey's time for troops of a certain equip- 



82 NOTES 

ment. Compare the French chasseur in a similar sense, and the 
note on 40 4. 

56 10. '' Indorsed, ^^ Paradise liegained, book iii., line 329. 
Etymology ? 

56 16. Pageant 9 

^39. 56 32. ^atZ sew^/onmrfZ corners, probably only an expan- 
sion of " Je I'avais prevu" (62 10). 

56 32. All the requisite statements and petitions is absurdly legal. 
Compare documents — minutes of council (19 14), and note through- 
out the absence of all attempt to realize the character and habits of 
the Kalmuck nomads. 

57 16. Clangour of iveapons. The noun clangor is used by the 
Latin poets, especially Vergil, of the sound of wind instruments or 
the cry of birds. De Quincey probably had in mind the more com- 
mon words clang and clank. Consult one of the larger dic- 
tionaries. 

•[[ 40. 58 6. A large fresh-ivater lake. See the note on 58 20. 
Unfortunately this lake is salt ! Does De Qunicey seem to have any 
appreciation of its size ? From this point on test the indications of 
geography, especially of the relative positions of the actors, to see if 
these indications are consistent with one another and with the actual 
geography. 

58 7. The imperial cavalry. The interposition of the Chinese 
troops, both in the idea and in all the details {e.g., the fort), is 
apparently pure invention. 

^ 41. 58 20. The lake of Tengis (Tenghiz, Tengheez, Dengis). 
Several lakes in the Kirghiz steppes have Tengis {i.e., " sea") affixed 
to their specific names {e.g., Tschalkar Tengis). It is clear from the 
mention of the river Ily, and from Bergmann's specific indication 
(see Appendix C), that the lake meant is Balkash (45°-47° N., 73°- 
80° E.). It receives the Ily and several smaller streams, and, like 
other lakes of the Kirghiz steppes, is salt and has no outlet. Its 
length (N.E.-S.W.) is 345 miles, its greatest breadth 55 miles. To 
the west and north lie deserts. After the Caspian and the Aral, it is 
the largest body of water in the steppes. 

58 20. The desert of KoU (Cobi, Gobi, or Shamo) is a wide region 
to the west of Lake Balkash (40°-50° N., 90°-120° E.), comprising a 
large part of what are now known as Mongolia and Chinese Turkes- 
tan. Its length (E.-W.) is about 1,200 miles, its breadth (N.-S.) 
500-700 miles. Its central portion is shifting sand. In the north- 
ern and the southern parts are broad rocky tracts, with some oases. 



NOTES 83 

111 the atlases of Aiidree and Stieler the eastern portion is marked 
significantly " Hunger-Steppe." 

58 32. 600,000-260,000. See the note on 65 21. 

60 26. To allow of men raising their heads is ungrammatical. 

60 31. The eastern side. See the note on 58 6. 

618. '' Globes'' and " turms." These barbarisms are meant to 
recall the Latin military terms globi and turmm. De Quincey may 
be thinking of Milton, who uses turms in Paradise Regained, book 
iv., line 66 ; and globe in Paradise Lost, ii., 512, though without 
so far forcing the meaning of the latter. 

^ 42. 62 4. The River lly (Hi or Eelee) rises in the mountains of 
Thian-Shan (about 42° N., 81° E.), and flows N.E., then N.N.W., 
into Lake Balkash. Hs course is about 300 miles. 

62 6. The betieficent attention of the Chinese Emperor seems indeed 
surprising. Why should he have assumed these " parental cares" ? 
In spite of the " smooth and specious language " in which, as Gibbon 
says, his inscription is couched, there is more than one hint that he 
could not help it. The coming of the Torgut Kalmucks was practi- 
cally an invasion of his borders. Father Amiot remarks in a note: 
" Here the Emperor dare not speak out. I will speak for him. He 
feared with reason that the Torgotes would take by main force the 
region which they regarded as their ancient fatherland. With the 
few troops then at or near the lly, how could the unexpected irrup- 
tion have been prevented ? Large armies would have been needed 
to drive the Torgotes back. By receiving their homage and estab- 
lishing them himself the Emperor avoided the whole difficulty. 
War, if it had been resorted to, must have been most bloody, be- 
cause it could have been brought to a close only by the total extinc- 
tion of that branch of the Eleutes. Did he not follow the wiser 
policy in taking glory for an event which the Chinese historians 
would not otherwise have failed to set down among the most 
ominous of his reign ? " ' 

Farther on he adds: " It must be admitted that the Emperor con- 
ducted himself on this occasion with all the wisdom and generosity 
of the greatest prince of the universe. It must also be admitted that 
no one but the Emperor of China is rich enough to spend out of his 
own purse, without exacting anything from his subjects, sums which 
could not but be regarded as exaggerated if they were set down here 
in detail."'^ 

62 8. " ia nation/'^ etc. For the translation see the italicized 

1 Memoires, etc., p. 415. 2 iffia,^ etc., p. 417. 3 Ibid., p. 416. 



84 NOTES 

passage in Appendix B, p. 90. The quotation, though substantially 
correct, is inexact and, in places, doubtful in syntax. See Appendix 
C, p. 90 and foot note. 

^y 43. 62 33. " Lorsqiiils arriverent," etc. The quotation is from 
a letter of Father Amiot appended to his translation of the Emperor's 
inscription. He is quoting from Yu-min-tchoung, "a grandee of 
the Empire." In English the passage runs: "When they reached 
our frontier, several hundred thousand in number (extreme fatigue, 
hunger, thirst, and all the other difficulties of a very long and toil- 
some route had killed almost as many again), they were reduced to 
the extremity of misery. They were in need of everything. He 
(i.e., the Emperor, Kien Long) had such places prepared for them 
to settle in as were suited to their way of life. He had food and 
clothing distributed. He presented them with oxen, sheep, tools, to 
put them in the way of grazing and agriculture — and all this at his 
own expense, which amounted to immense sums, without counting 
the money given to the head of each family, to provide for the sus- 
tenance of his wife and children." * The quotation, like the previous 
one, is inexact. 

TI 44. 63 20. Pastorcd, vagrant, nomadic, distinction ? etymology ? 

If 45. 65 4. ""Lex nee jastior" etc., "No law is more Just than 
that the devisers of murder should perish by their own device." 
Ovid, Ars Amatoria, i., 655, 656. But the quotation should be: 
''Justus uterqae fiiit; neque enim lex cequior ulla est Quain,''' etc. 

65 12. Lares. Consult a dictionary of classical antiquities. 

66 16. Arcadian beauty. Arcadian simplicity is the common prov- 
erb. Both expressions arise from the fact that Arcadia, pre- 
eminently among the Greek states, was a pastoral country. Com- 
pare the oft-quoted Arcades ambo in the seventh Eclogue of Vergil, 
line 4. 

65 21. Agony —half a million. " Although the sufferings of the 
Torguts on their march must have been excessive, there is clearly 
great exaggeration in the account of Bergmann. We must remem- 
ber that they were nomads by origin, and that long marches were 
familiar to them, as were also the various incidents that accompany 
a caravan journey over such a country as the Kirghiz steppes; and 
although they arrived poor, and denuded of almost everything, it is 
not probable that they lost a very large portion of their numbers on 
the way, as Bergmann would have us believe. There is considerable 
discrepancy between the Russian numbers and those supplied by the 

' MetHOiifs. etc., p. 422. 



NOTES 85 

Chinese. The former make out that only 40,000 families left Rus- 
sia, while the latter claim that 50,000 families, numbering 800,000 
mouths, arrived in China. This kind of discrepancy shows that the 
loss of life on the journey could not have been so great as Bergmann 
supposes."' Bergmann records (i., 219, 220) an enumeration at the 
Jaik which reported over 70,000 tents, and he thinks the number that 
left Russia must have been 70,000-75,000 tents. As to the number 
that arrived in China, he does not venture on so close an estimate, 
but thinks 50,000 families an exaggeration. 

6.» 23. At Athens. See 31 20 and note. 

66 14. Mighty columns of granite and brass, a fancy of De Quin- 
cey's. The letter of Father Amiot, from which quotation was made 
in the note on 62 33, contains the following passage, also from 
Yu-min-tchoung : " The year of the arrival of the Torgotes happened 
to be precisely that in which the Emperor was celebrating the 
eightieth birthday of his mother the Empress-dowager. In memory 
of this happy occasion His INIajesty had caused to be built upon The- 
mountain-that-shades-from-the-heat a vast and magnificent Miao 
(temple) to the honour of all the attributes of Fo united in one worship. 
It had just been completed when Oubacha and the other princes of his 
nation arrived at Gehol (Ge Ho). In memory of an event which con- 
tributed to make this forever a red-letter year, His Majesty wished to 
erect in the same Miao a monument which should fix the epoch of 
the event and witness to its authenticity. He himself composed the 
words and wrote them out with his own hand.'"^ Yu-min-tchoung 
goes on to say that he was permitted to make a copy. This copy it 
is which Father Amiot translated (see Appendix B). De Quincey's 
inscription (66 20-67 14) is therefore an invention of his own — a 
venial offence, but for the deliberate imposture of the foot-note. 

66. Note. Byzantine Ccesars. See Fisher, part ii., chapter 3 
(p. 217); Ploetz, p. 210. 

» Howorth, vol. i., p. 579. * Memoires, etc., pp. 425, 426. 



APPENDIX A 

BOOKS BEARIi^^G UPON THE KALMUCKS AKD THEIR 
REVOLT.' 

Amiot, le Pere : Monument de la Transmigration ties Tourgonths 
ties Bords de la Mer Caspienne dans I'Empire de la Chine (Memoires 
concernant I'Histoire, etc., des Chinois, par les Missionaires de 
Pekin, Paris, 1776, vol. i., pp. 400-427.) 

Bergma7in, Benjamin B.: Nomadische Streifereien unter den 
Kalmtiken in den Jahren 1802 und 1803; Riga, 1804 (vol. i., pp. 139- 
246, Versuch zur Geschichte der Kalmiikenflucht von der Wolga). 
See also Moris. 

Castera, Jean Henri : Life of Catherine II., translated by the Rev. 
W. W. Dakins, London, 1799 (v^ol. ii., p. 160). 

CJwpin, Jean Marie: Russie (in a series entitled ITnivers); Paris, 
1838 (vol. i., vol. vii. of the series, p. 338). 

L'Evesque, Pierre Charles: fiistoire de Russie, nouvelle (4me) 
edition; Hambourg et Brunswick, 1800 (vol. vii., pp. 1-177; viii., p. 
276). 

De Hell, M. et Mme. Xavier Hommaire : Les Steppes de la Mer 
Caspienne, etc. ; translated as " Travels in the Steppes of the Caspian 
Sea," etc., London, 1847 (pp. 221-263). 

Hoivorfh, Henry P., F. S. A.: History of the Mongols from the 
9th to the 19th Century ; London, 1876 (part i., the Mongols Proper 
and the Kalmucks ; pp. 534-589, the Keraits and Torguts). 

Hue, le Pere, Pretre Missionaire de la Congregation de Saint- 
Lazare : Souvenirs d'un Voyage dans la Tartaric, le Thibet, et la 
Chine, pendant les annees 1844, 1845, and 1846 ; translated by Mrs. 
Percy Sinnett, London ; translation reprinted, New York, 1852. 

Macartney, the Earl of ; see Staunton. 

De Mailla, le Pere Joseph- Anne- Marie de Moyriac. Jesuite Fran- 
cois, 3Iissionaire a Pekin : Histoire Gen^rale de la Chine, etc. ; Paris, 
1780 (vol. xi., pp. 582-587). 

* A complete bibliography from the Chinese side will be found in the Bibliotheca 
Siiiica of Cordier (Paris, 1880-1895). 



APPENDIX B 87 

^lemoii'es concernant les Chinois, etc. ; see Amiot. 

miner, the Rev. Thomas, 31. A., F. R. Q. S.: Russia ; its Rise 
and Progress, Tragedies and Revolutions ; London, 1856 (pp. 355- 
376). 

Moris, 31.: Essai sur la fuite des Kalmuks des bords du Volga, 
traduit de I'Allemand (Bergiuann); Chatillon-sur- Seine, 1825. 

Pallas, Petr. Simon : Sammlungen Historischer Nachrichten uber 
die Mongol ischeji Volkerschaften, 2 vols. ; St. Petersburg, 1776 (vol. 
1., pp. 60-93). Less important is Pallas's Travels through the 
Southern Provinces of the Russian Empire in 1793-94 ; translated 
from the German, 2d ed., London, 1812. 

Rambaud, Alfred : Histoire de la Russie ; Paris, 1878 ; translated 
by Leonora B. Lang as "The History of Russia from the Earliest 
Times to 1877 ; " London, 1879 (vol. i., p. 31 ; ii., pp. 133, 134). 

Staunton, Sir George, Bart.: An Authentic Account of an Em- 
bassy from the King of Great Britain to the Emperor of China, etc., 
taken chiefly from the papers of His Excellency the Earl of Macart- 
ney, etc. ; London, 1798, 2 vols., maps and plates in a 3d vol. (Vol. 
ii., p. 265, contains a very inaccurate reference to the migration 
of the Kalmucks. The general map at the beginning of vol. i. 
shows "Lake Tengis," with the river Hy and the settlement of the 
" Torgote Tartars," all rather inaccurate. This map and the plates, 
to which reference is made in the notes, were not improbably con- 
sulted by De Quincey. He certainly knew the book.) 

Tooke, William, F.R.S.: The Life of Catherine II., 4th ed., 
London, 1800 ; vol. ii., pp. 158-168 ; also View of the Russiam Em- 
pire during the Reign of Catherine the Second, and to the Close of 
the 18th Century; 2d ed., London, 1800 (vol. i., pp. 432-434). 



APPENDIX B 

SELECTIONS 1 FROM THE I^TSCRIPTIOK OF THE EMPEROR 
KIEN" LONG, TRANSLATED INTO FRENCH BY FATHER 
AMIOT. ^ 

[The earlier narratives cited in Appendix A are all based on 
Amiot, except Pallas, who adds little, and Bergmann, who recon- 

J Taken from the English Version of de Hell's narrative, pages 327-235. 
2 See Appendix A for the full title. 



88 APPENDIX B 

structs the whole story, mainly from the Russian side and from oral 
testimony.] 

" in the thirty-sixth year of Kien Long, that is to say, in the year of 
Jesus Christ, 1771, all the Tartars composing the nation of the Tor- 
gouths ^ arrived, after encountering a thousand perils, in the plains 
watered by the Ily, entreating the favour to be admitted among the 
vassals of the great Chinese empire. By their own account, they have 
abandoned for ever, and without regret, the sterile banks of the Volga 
and the Jaik, along which the Russians had formerly allowed them to 
settle, near where the two rivers empty themselves into the Caspian. 
They have abandoned them, they say, to come and admire more closely 
the brilliant lustre of the heavens, and at last to enjoy, like so many 
others, the happiness of having henceforth for master the greatest 
prince in the world. Notwithstanding the many battles in which 
they have been obliged to engage, defensively or offensively, with 
those through whose country they had to pass, and at whose expense 
they were necessarily compelled to live; notwithstanding the depre- 
dations committed on them by the vagrant Tartars, who repeatedly 
attacked and plundered them on their march ; notwithstanding the 
enormous fatigues endured by them in traversing more than 10,000 
leagues,'^ through one of the most difficult countries; notwithstand- 
ing hunger, thirst, misery, and an almost general scarcity of common 
necessaries, to which they were exposed during their eight months 
journey, their numbers still amounted to 50,000 families when they 
arrived ; and these 50,000 families, to use the language of the coun- 
try, counted 300,000 mouths, without sensible error. . . . 

" ' AlP those who now compose the nation of the Torgouths, 
undismayed by the dangers of a long and toilsome journey, filled 
with the sole desire of procuring for the future a better manner of 
life and a happier lot, have abandoned the places where tliey dwelt 
far beyond our frontier, have traversed with unshakable courage a 
space of more than ten thousand leagues, and have ranged them- 
selves, of their own accord, among the number of my subjects. 
Their submission to me is not a submission inspired by fear, but a 
voluntary and free submission, if ever such there was. . . . 

1 De Mailla {HMoire Gmerale de la Chine, vol. xi., p. 586, foot-note) quotes 
from Abulgasi-Bayadur-Chan a classification of the Kalmucks into KallmacM-Dson- 
gari (Soongares), KallmacM-Coschoti (Khoshotes), and Kallmacki-Torgauti (Tor- 
gotes or Torgouths). This classification, though often modified, has never been 
superseded. 

2 " Dix mille lys." So elsewhere. 

3 Here begins the translation proper. What precedes is Father Amiot's preface. 



APPENDIX B 89 

" ' Oubacha, who is now khan of the Torgouths, is great grandson 
of Aiouki. The Russians, never ceasing to require soldiers of him to 
be incorporated in their troops, having at last taken his own son from 
him as a hostage, and being besides of a different religion from him- 
self, and making no account of that of the Lamas which the Tor- 
gouths profess, Oubacha and his people finally determined to shake 
oil a yoke which was daily becoming more and more insupportable. 

"'After having secretly deliberated among themselves, they re- 
solved to quit an abode where they had to suffer so much, and 
come and dwell in the countries subject to China, where the religion 
of Fo is professed. 

" ' In the beginning of the eleventh moon of last year they began 
their march with their women and children and all their baggage, 
traversed the country of the Hasacks, passed along the shores of 
Lake Palkache Nor and through the adjoining deserts, and towards 
the close of the sixth moon of this year, after having completed more 
than 10,000 leagues in the eight months of their wayfaring, they at 
last arrived on the frontiers of Chara Pen, not far from the banks of 
the Ily. I was already aware that the Torgouths were on their 
march to submit themselves to me, the news having been brought 
me shortly after their departure from Etchil. I then reflected that 
Ileton, general of the troops at Ily, having already been charged with 
other very important affairs, it was to be feared that he could not 
regulate those of the new comers with all the requisite attention. 

'" Chouhede, one of the general's councillors, was at Ouche, 
employed in maintaining order among the Mahometans. As he 
was at hand to attend to the Torgouths, I ordered him to repair to 
Ily, that he might use his best efforts to establish them solidly. . . . 

" 'Nevertheless, I neglected none of the precautions that seemed 
to me necessary. I ordered Chouhede to erect forts and redoubts 
in the most important places, and have all the passes strictly 
guarded. I enjoined him to exert himself personally in procuring 
necessary provisions of all kinds within the frontiers, whilst fit per- 
sons, carefully chosen by him, should make every arrangement for 
securing quiet without. 

" ' The Torgouths arrived, and at once found lodging, food, and all 
the conveniences they could have enjoyed each in his own dwelling. 
Nor was this all ; the principal men among them, who were to come 
in person and pay homage to me, were conducted with honor and 
free of expense by the imperial post-roads to the place where I then 
was. I saw them, spoke to them, and was pleased that they sliould 



90 APPENDIX C 

enjoy the pleasures of the chase with me; and after the days allotted 
to that recreation were ended, they repaired in my suite to Ge Ho. 
There I gave them the banquet of ceremony, and made them the 
ordinary presents with the same pomp and state as I am accustomed 
to employ when I give solemn audience to Tchering and the chiefs of 
the Tourbeths, of whom he is the leader. . . . 

" ' The nation of the Torgouths arrived at Ily in total destitution, 
without victuals or clothing. I had foreseen this, and given orders to 
Chouhede and others to lay up the necessary provisions of all kinds 
that they rnight he promptly succoured. This was do7ie. The lands 
ivere divided, and to each family was assigned a sufficient portion 
for its support hy tillage or cattle rearing. Each individual received 
cloth for garments, a yearns supply of corn, household utensils, and 
other necessaries, and besides all this, several ounces of silver to pro- 
vide himself with whatever might have been forgotten. Specific 
tracts, fertile in pasturage, were appointed for them, and they ivere 
given oxen, sheep, etc., that they might afterwards labour for their 
oivn sustenance and welfare.'" 



APPENDIX 



RELATIONS OF DE QUINCEY's N"ARRATIVE TO BERG- 



MA N"NS. 



Bergmann is the only authority De Quincey can be affirmed to 
have read. Father Amiot he quotes, but only what appears in 
Bergmann's foot-notes.^ If De Quincey had understood that Father 
Amiot's account does not mention a monument and an inscription, 
but is the translation of that inscription, he would hardly have dared 
to invent the "mighty columns of granite and brass," and the 
rhetorical inscription with its appended note (p. 66). This informa- 

1 For the full title see Appendix A. 

2 Bergmann quotes Amiot in German translation, but Professor Masson (vol, 
vii., p. 9, of his collective edition) asserts that De Quincey used a French transla- 
tion of Bergmann, which would, of course, quote directly from Amiot. This 
extremely indirect research may account for some trifling inaccuracies in De 
Quincey's quotations. The French translation of Bergmann, which I have been 
unable to procure, appears in the British Museum Catalogue (1048, c. 27), as io\- 
]ows •.—Bergmann, B. F. B: Voyage chez les Kalmuks, Traduit de rAllemaiid 
par M. Moris (Essai sur la fitite des Kalmuks des bords du, Volga) ; Chatillou-sur- 
Seine, 1825, 8°. 



APPENDIX C 91 

tion he would have found in the very title. Moreover, he does not 
mention Father Amiot, referring simply, as Bergmann does, to 
"Jesuit missionaries." ^ 

But even Bergmann De Quincey can be said to follow only in the 
use of certain details not given by other historians, in a few slight 
correspondences of phrase, and in the interpretation of the revolt 
as a colossal scheme of Zebek Dorchi's. His variations from Berg- 
mann are twofold : first, the essence of his treatment is an imag- 
inative expansion and realization of the scenes of the flight, leading 
up to a climax of horror and misery ; secondly, he indulges, per- 
liaps unconsciously, in a cavalier handling of Bergmann's facts. 
The following analysis proceeds by paragraphs, with references to 
page and line, 

1[ ^ 1-3 are, of course, entirely De Quincey. 

^ 4. The characterization of Oubacha and of Zebek Dorchi fol- 
lows Bergmann (i., 146) closely. Most of the other authorities make 
Oubacha an old man, and do not mention Zebek Dorchi. 

^ 5 follows Bergmann (i., 151) essentially, but varies widely in 
details. Bergmann's account of the reorganization of the Sarga is 
as follows (i., 153) : 

" Prince and Sargatchi were to be thenceforth subject to the con- 
trol of an imperial council. The prince could merely lodge com- 
plaint in case any Sargatchi broke his oath of allegiance. Com- 
plaint and defense would then be duly investigated and decided as 
in the ordinary course of law. If found guilty, the Sargatchi would 
be removed from office ; if found innocent, he would be publicly 
acquitted. Moreover, by a salary of one hundred rubles, the Sar- 
gatchi, it was believed, would be still further attached to the Rus- 
sian interest. If this reorganization did not meet all expectations, 
the Russian court thought at least to secure itself against any ambi- 
tious designs of Oubacha by appointing Zebek Dorchi his first Sar- 
gatchi. Instead of drawing the sting of the serpent, they gave it 
still greater opportunity and means to distill a more effectual venom 
for the future. 

" Although Zebek Dorchi found himself deceived in his expecta- 
tions, yet his new position gave him a sphere of influence wliich 
opened other prospects for him in the future." 

^ 6. Welcomed as a benefactor (10 13), Bergmann, i.. 156. 

For those very acts of interference (10 30), Bergmann i., 160. 

' Bergmann happens to cite always the whole series in which Father Amiot's 
report appears, instead of the report itself. 



93 APPENDIX C 

Wonn-hehemoth (11 9). Bergmaiin's figure (i., 154) is giant and 
dwarf. 

^ 7. The characterizations of Erenipel and of the lama follow 
Berginaim (i,, 156-159) ; so also the oracle (i., 1G4) and the years of 
the tiger and the hare (i., 165). 

^1^1 8-9. Bergmann (i., 167). De Quincey omits the episode of 
Oubacha's allowing forty-three of the hostile chiefs to escape, but 
otherwise follows closely. 

"![ 10 has no basis in Bergmann, except a few words (i., 168) sug- 
gesting that the Empress may have been suspicious. 

1i 11 is practically all De Quincey ; but 19 21- 20 10 has for basis 
Bergmann's remark (i., 170) tliat Zebek Dorchi had the prince sworn 
with a solemn oath. 

1[^ 12-14. Bergmann (i., 181-183) says the chiefs were assembled 
in tiie Nryn steppe on pretense of an attack of Kirghises, and that 
Zebek Dorchi made a speech. " If this unexpected speech made its 
impression upon the Kalmuck nobles— much greater must have 
been the impression when, by way of confirmation, there was passed 
around among those present a docuuient gotten up for this purpose in 
which Zebek Dorchi was specified as the conductor of those 300 sons 
of Saissangs " (whom the Russians, according to Zebek, were about to 
take as hostages). Some of the reasons alleged in 1[ 12 appear in 
Bergmann (i., 161) as used to convince Oubacha. 

^*j 15-16. The agency of Kichinskoi and Beketoff is the same as 
in Bergmann (i., 168-170, 179). But Bergmann mentions no feud 
between the two. He says that Beketoff had private information 
from one of the Sargatchi, and that Kichinskoi was blind enough to 
give the Khan a detachment of twenty Cossacks, with two field- 
pieces, for the pretended war with the Kirghises. 

1[ 17 is entirely De Quincey, and contains (27 23- 28 4) an absurd 
misunderstanding. The Kalmucks had no occasion to burn their 
villages. They simply discarded such of their tents and tent-fittings 
as were not absolutely necessary, and packed the rest on their camels. 
Especially absurd is the timbers of his own palace (27 31), of which 
the basis is the following sentence in Bergmann (i., 192): 

"The prince himself set the people an example by having his 
largest tents (Wohnhiitten) destroyed, and the long tent-poles (Dach- 
holzer) made into lances." 

•[t 18, 19. Bergmann (i., 184-189) says that the Western Kal- 
mucks were kept back by the open river; that this circumstance saved 
the Russian towns and villages, except that some Armenian and 



APPENDIX C 93 

Tartar merchants were pluiidored; and that the twenty Cossacks de- 
tailed by Kichinskoi for the supposed war with the Kirghises were 
maltreated and carried off. 

^^ 20-22 are entirely De Quincey. 

^ 23 shows considerable variation. As to the " fortress" Koula- 
gina (34 1-17) Bergmann says (i., 193) : 

" The Jaik Cossacks had not counted on a visit from the Kalmucks; 
for the greater part of them were at the Caspian fisheries, their only 
occupation since they renounced piracy. The few hundreds who had 
been left in the forts owed their salvation quite as much to Kalmuck 
inexperience in the art of siege and their inefficient equipment as to 
the haste with which they had to cross the Jaik in order to escape 
the Russian troops. Oubacha himself summoned the fort Kulagina, 
and, on the refusal of the commandant, planted the two field-pieces 
that he had gotten from Kichinskoi. This fort, like the others along 
the Jaik, was only a stockade ; but the fire of the garrison cost the 
Kalmucks several men, while they themselves plied their cannon 
without effect." 

All the rest of the paragraph, where it is not invention, is mis- 
understanding. Compare this account, and De Quincey's note to 
page 40, with the following (Bergmann, i., 194): 

"Just beyond the Jaik the Cossacks of the neighbourhood drew 
together under Mitraessow, and, about 2,000 strong, rode after the 
fugitives. Among the mountains they intercepted a small horde 
{Kleinen Haufen), which, on account of its desperate resistance, they 
cut down almost to a man. The oulosses Jikae Zechorr and Aerkae- 
tunn, which together numbered several thousand tents, surrendered 
without a blow. The chieftains of the former, Assarcho and Masclii, 
had given to the governor of Astrakhan repeated assurances of their 
inclination to remain in Russia. Xo sooner did they see the Cossacks 
approaching than they went over to them with their hordes." Berg- 
mann goes on to say that these oulosses were reinstated in their 
former abodes, but their twenty chiefs {Saissangs) were knouted for 
killing thirty captured Russians. The only trace of De Quincey's 
bloody battle is in the second sentence, which does not refer to these 
oulosses at all. 

^^ 24-27 have no basis in Bergmann for the essential facts, and 
hardly any for the details of the suffering. 

1"^ 28-31 agree substantially with Bergmann's facts, but neither 
with his order nor with his details. According to Bergmann, Trau- 
benberg was sent from the town of Orenburg with 5,000 regulars. 



94 APPENDIX C 

mainly Cossacks {large Russian army, etc., 40 18). Re was rein- 
forced by strong bands of Bashkirs and Kirghises (i. , 196). The Kal- 
muck discontent and desire for return (i., 198) broke out at the 
Irgitch into loud demands (i., 202). They crossed the river on 
bundles of rushes (1., 203). Traubenberg was guilty of neglect in not 
pushing the pursuit (i., 205). Nurali Khan broke away to pursue the 
Kalmucks (i., 217). 

11^ 32, 36-42. The persecutions of the Bashkirs and Kirghises, in 
almost daily attacks, and the final carnage at Lake Balkash grew 
from two or three pages of Bergmann. He says (i., 217) that Nurali 
Khan and Ablai Khan fell upon the Kalmucks in the midst of a 
desert (the Kalmucks had already gone on from the Turgai) and tried 
to cut them off from the next oases. Despair gave strength to the 
Kalmucks; greed of plunder to their enemies. As victory was inclin- 
ing to the former, Zebek Dorchi and Bambar were cut off and would 
surely have been carried prisoners but for Ohereng. The fight lasted 
two days, and the field was covered with corpses. The narrative 
then goes on (i., 218): 

" The Kirghises, whom the success of this battle (the first recorded 
by Bergmann) encouraged to further attacks, ceased not to disturb 
the fleeing Kalmucks up to the borders of China. After many days 
of forced marching through almost waterless regions the fugitives 
reached Lake Tengis (Balgaschnur, as the Mongols call it). Toward 
this lake they rushed en masse, fighting for place with their own 
cattle, and pressed in, without throwing off their clothes, as far as 
the depth allowed, at last to slake their torturing thirst. Many fell 
victims to their incontinence, more to the sword of the Kirghises in 
a bloody battle. Since there was no chance for defence, only the 
swiftest Kalmucks were able to reach the farther bank of the Ily and 
escape. The Kirghises returned to their homes laden with booty 
and accompanied by numerous prisoners. The Kalmucks had still 
to cut their way through the plundering Bur^etes before they attained 
the dearly-bought goal of their seven months' migration." 

The Chinese Emperor's view of the approaching combatants, and 
the interposition of his troops, is without foundation and highly 
improbable, if not impossible. 

•^ly 34, 35. Weseloff is one of Bergmann's most important authori- 
ties. On his oral evidence rest many incidents peculiar to Berg- 
mann's narrative. As if in recognition of this, Bergmann appends 
tlie story of Weseloff 's captivity and escape (pp. 232-246). In 
summary it is as follows : 



APPENDIX C 95 

Throughout the earlier part of tlie flight Weseloff's hardships 
amounted often to torture. But at the Jemba his chains were 
removed, and Oubacha would have given him his liberty but for the 
demur of the chiefs. Plearing that a Kalmuck had come to camp 
with a letter from the Russian General Traubenberg, Weseloff set 
out to find him. On the way he was hailed by another Kalmuck 
named Lanssan, who proposed to flee with him. Lanssan's family 
sped the two with presents of copper money and a flint-lock musket. 
The fugitives stole six horses (De Quincey makes them catch wild 
horses) to relieve their own, and by means of the eight reached the 
Turgai (200 versts) the next day. Swimming their horses over, they 
then returned for their clothes, but were so exhausted with fatigue 
and exposure that they sank down on the eastern bank and slept 
till next midday. On the eleventh day they reached Orsk. They 
had been obliged to kill one of their horses for food. With the 
money from the sale of the other seven Weseloff pushed on, stopping 
at Orenburg, and again, with a relative, at the foot of the Ural 
Mountains. Meantime he had sent word ahead to his mother, but 
her Joy at the meeting was so great that she died within three 
months. 

There is no hint, it will be observed, of the saving of Oubacha's 
life, nor any mention of skeletons; but "vast heaps of money" 
(51 18), or rather large heaps of copper coin, are mentioned by both 
Bergmann and Pallas. De Quincey's statement — " He was, however, 
a man of principle, and always adhered firmly to the details of his 
printed report " (51 12), is a typical instance of his accurate inac- 
curacy. Bergmann, in his preface (i., 24), says : 

"For almost six months I have been with him \_i.e., Weselotf] al- 
most daily, at almost every meeting have learned something new 
about the flight of the Kalmucks, and have made him relate much of 
it two or three times, in order to assure myself of the truth of his 
representations. I found his expressions so consistent that I cannot 
doubt their truth." 

But in a note to p. 141, Bergmann cites "the only printed 
records, so far as I know," and Weseloff's is not among them. In 
fact, Bergmann makes a point of the valuable oral evidence on which 
his account is based, and especially of Weseloff's. 

^[^ 43-46 contain nothing from Bergmann except the hint for the 
"assassination " (65 1) of the ambitious chiefs (i., 224). 

These variations in fact may be explained by three hypotheses: 
(1) De Quincey mistranslated; (2) he had other sources, as yet undis- 



96 APPENDIX C 

covered; (3) he invented. Of these three, the first is insufficient and 
improbable; the second, at least improbable; the third, toward 
which Professor Masson inclines (collective edition, vol. vii., p. 426), 
has some support in the fact that De Quincey often wrote without 
means of verifying references. That this was the case here we have 
his own statement in the preface to the fourth volume of Hogg's col- 
lective edition, in which the piece was reprinted : 

"The series of papers, published in this and the preceding volume, 
were originally written under one set of disadvantages, and are now 
revised under another. They were written generally under great 
pressure as to time, in order to catch the critical periods of monthly 
journals ; written oftentimes at a distance from the press (so as to 
have no opportunity for correction) ; and always written at a distance 
from libraries — so that very many statements, references, and cita- 
tions were made on the authority of my unassisted memory. Under 
such circumstances were most of the papers composed ; and they are 
now reissued in a corrected form, sometimes even partially recast, * 
under the distraction of a nervous misery which embarrasses ray 
efforts in a mode and in a degree inexpressible by words." 

The A'ariations in form are all of the general character noted at 
p. xxxii. as typical of De Quincey's method. 

* The changes iu this particular piece are merely verbal.— Ed. 



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better English teaching in the secondary schools." 

— Prof. Katherine Lee Bates, Wellesley College. 

" They are thoroughly edited and attractively presented, and cannot 
fail to be welcome when used for the college entrance requirements in 
English." — Prof. Charles F. Richardson, Dartmouth College. 



LONGMANS' ENGLISH CLASSICS 



Irving's • Tales of a Traveller.' 

•' I feel bound to say that, if the series of English Classics is 
carried out after the plan of this initial volume, it will contribute much 
toward making the study of literature a pure delight." 

—Prof. A. G. Newcomer, Leland Stanford Jr. University. 

" I have looked through the first volume of your English Classics, 
Irving's ' Tales of a Traveller,' and do not see how literature could be 
made more attractive to the secondary schools." — Prof. Edward A. 
Allen, University of Missouri ; Member of the English Conference of 
the National Committee of Ten. 

" I have received your Irving's ' Tales of a Traveller' and examined 
it with much pleasure. The helpful suggestions to teachers, the 
judicious notes, the careful editing, and the substantial binding make it 
the most desirable volume for class use on the subject, that has come to 
my -notice." — Edwin Cornell, Principal of Central Valley Union 
School. N. Y. 

George Eliot's ' Silas Marner.' 

"This book is really attractive and inviting. The introduction, 
particularly the suggestions to pupils and teachers, is a piece of real 
helpfulness and wisdom." 

— D. E. Bowman, Principal of High School, Waterville, Me. 

"The edition of 'Silas Marner' recently sent out by you leaves 
nothing undone. I find the book handsome, the notes sensible and 
clear. I'm glad to see a book so well adapted to High School needs, 
and I shall recommend it, without reserve, as a safe and clean book to 
put before our pupils." 

— James W. McLane, Central High School, Cleveland, O. 

Scott's ' Woodstock.' 

" Scott's ' Woodstock,' edited by Professor Bliss Perry, deepens the 
impression made by the earlier numbers that this series, Longmans* 
English Classics, is one of unusual excellence in the editing, and will 
prove a valuable auxiliary in the reform of English teaching now 
generally in progress. . . . We have, in addition to the unabridged 
text of the novel, a careful editorial introduction ; the author's intro- 
duction, preface and notes ; a reprint of ' The Just Devil of Woodstock'; 
and such foot-notes as the student will need as he turns from page to 
page. Besides all this apparatus, many of the chapters have appended 
a few suggestive hints for character-study, collateral reading and dis- 
cussions of the art of fiction. All this matter is so skillfully distributed 
that it does not weigh upon the conscience, and is not likely to make the 



LONGMANS' ENGLISH CLASSICS 



student forget that he is, after all, reading a novel chiefly for the 
pleasure it affords. The entire aim of this volume and its companions 
is literary rather than historical or linguistic, and in this fact their chief 
value is to be found." — The Dial, 

"I heartily approve of the manner in which the editor's work has 
been done. This book, if properly used by the teacher and supple- 
mented by the work so clearly suggested in the notes, may be made of 
great value to students, not only as literature but as affording oppor- 
tunity for historical research and exercise in composition." 

— Lillian G. Kimball, State Normal School, Oshkosh, Wis. 

Defoe's 'History of the Plague in London.' 

"He gives an interesting biography of Defoe, an account of his 
works, a discussion of their ethical influence (including that of this 
'somewhat sensational' novel), some suggestions to teachers and students, 
and a list of references for future study. This is all valuable and sugges- 
tive. The reader wishes that there were more of it. Indeed, the criticism 
I was about to offer on this series is perhaps their chief excellence. 
One wishes that the introductions were longer and more exhaustive. 
For, contrary to custom, as expressed in Gr^tiano's query, ' Who riseth 
from a feast with that keen appetite that he sits down ? ' the young 
student will doubtless finish these introductions hungering for more. 
And this, perhaps, was the editor's object in view, viz., that the intro- 
ductory and explanatory matter should be suggestive and stimulating 
rather than complete and exhaustive ! " — Educational Review. 

" I have taken great pleasure in examining your edition of Defoe's 
Plague in London,' The introduction and notes are beyond reproach, 
and the binding and typography are ideal. The American school-boy 
is to be congratulated that he at length may study his English from 
books in so attractive a dress."— George N. McKnight, Instructor in 
English, Cornell University. 

" I am greatly obliged to you for the copy of the 'Journal of the 
Plague.' I am particularly pleased with Professor Carpenter's intro- 
duction and his handling of the difficult points in Defoe's life." — Ham- 
mond Lamont, A.B., Associate Professor of Composition and Rhetoric 
in Brown University. 

Macaulay's ' Essay on Milton.' 

" I have examined the Milton and am much pleased with it ; it fully 
sustains the high standard of the other works of this series ; the intro- 
duction, the suggestions to teachers, and the notes are admirable." 

— William Nichols, The Nichols School, Buffalo, N. Y. 



LONGMANS' ENGLISH CLASSICS 



"I beg" to acknowledge with thanks the receipt of Macauiay's 
' Essay on Mihon' and Webster's ' First Bunker Hill Oration' in your 
series of English Classics. These works for preparatory study are 
nowhere better edited or presented in more artistic form. 1 am glad you 
find it possible to publish so good a book for so little money." 

— Prof. W. H. Crawshaw, Colgate University. 

" I am especially pleased with Mr. Croswell's introduction to, and 
notes at the bottom of the page of, his edition of Macauiay's ' Essay on 
Milton.' I have never seen notes on a text that were more admirable 
than these. They contain just the information proper to impart, and 
are unusually well expressed." 

— Charles C, Ramsay, Principal of Fall River High School. 

Coleridge's 'Ancient Mariner.' 

"After an introduction which is well calculated to awaken interest 
both in Coleridge himself and in poetry as a form of literature, the 
poem is set before us with Coleridge's own glosses in the margin. Notes 
are added at the bottom of each page. These notes are well worth 
examination for the pedagogic skill they display. They provide, not so 
much information about the text, though all necessary explanation does 
appear, but suggestion and incitement to the discovery by the pupil for 
himself of the elements in the poem which the hasty reader only feels, if 
he does not lose them altogether. . . . Any good teacher will find 
this edition a veritable help to the appreciation of poetry by his pupils." 
— Principal Ray Greene Huling, English High School, Cambridge, 
Mass. 

" Mr. Bates is an interesting and charming writer of verse as well as 
prose, and makes a helpful and appreciative teacher to follow through 
tlie intricacies of the poem in question. In addition to extensive notes 
and comments, the book has a well-planned, brightly written introduc- 
tion, comprising a Coleridge biography, bibliography, and chronological 
table, a definition of poetry in general, and a thoughtful study of the 
origin, form, and criticisms of this particular poem, ' The Ancient 
Mariner.' Teachers and students of English are to be congratulated on. 
and Mr. Bates and his publishers thanked for, this acquisition to the 
field of literary study." — Literary IFor/c/, Boston. 

Milton's • L'Allegro, II Penseroso, etc' 

" Professor Trent's sympathetic treatment on the literary side of 
the subject matter, makes the introductions and notes of more than usual 
interest and profit ; and I think that it is just such editing as this that 
our younger students need in approaching the works of the great poets." 
— J. Russell Hayes, Assistant Professor of English, Swarthmore 
College, Pa. 



LONGMANS' ENGLISH CLASSICS 



It has been the aim of the publishers to secure editors 
of high reputation for scholarship, experience, and skill, 
and to provide a series thoroughly adapted, by uniformity 
of plan and thoroughness of execution, to present educa- 
tional needs. The chief distinguishing features of the 
series are the following : 

I. Each volume contains full '^ Suggestions for Teach- 
ers and Students," with bibliographies, and, in many 
cases, lists of topics recommended for further reading or 
study, subjects for themes and compositions, specimen 
examination papers, etc. It is therefore hoped that the 
series will contribute largely to the v/orking out of sound 
methods in teaching English, 

2. The works prescribed for I'eading are treated, in every 
case, as literature, not as texts for narrow linguistic study, 
and edited with a view to interesting the student in the 
book in question both in itself and as representative of a 
literary type or of a period of literature, and of leading 
him on to read other standard works of the same age or 
kind understandingly and appreciatively. 

3. These editions are not issued anonymously, nor are 
they hackwork, — the result of mere compilation. They 
are the original work of scholars and men of letters who 
are conversant with the topics of which they treat. 

4. Colleges and preparatory schools are both repre- 
sented in the list of editors (the preparatory schools more 
prominently in the lists for 1897 and 1898), and it is in- 
tended that the series shall exemplify the ripest methods 
of American scholars for the teaching of English — the 
result in some cases of years of actual experience in 
secondary school work, and, in others, the formulation of 
the experience acquired by professors who observe care- 
fully the needs of students who present themselves for 
admission to college. 

5. The volumes are uniform in size and style, are well 
printed and bound, and constitute a well-edited set of 
standard works, fit for permanent use and possession — a 
nucleus for a Hbrary of English literature. 



